Three arcade games satirizing President Donald Trump’s war with Iran have been installed at the District of Columbia War Memorial in Washington, turning the monument’s regal columns on the National Mall into a political arcade.
The installation, created by the anonymous activist group Secret Handshake, is titled Operation Epic Furious: Strait To Hell. One game lets players choose between ordering a Diet Coke or invading Iran. Another includes furious tweet battles against Iranian schoolgirls, low-flow shower heads and other threats to American freedom like DEI and The Pope, according to the group’s description. The games are expected to remain at the memorial for the next few days.
Secret Handshake said the project is a direct response to the way the White House has promoted the military effort online, using memes and video game clips on its official accounts. Since the war began on Feb. 28, the official White House account has posted footage from Iron Man, Top Gun, Wii Sports and Call of Duty mixed with real U.S. military strike video from Iran. By placing the games on the National Mall, the group has pulled that online style into public view and turned it against the administration itself.
The setup also folds in familiar targets from the group’s earlier protest art. Secret Handshake previously put a golden statue of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in front of the Capitol in March, and the new installation keeps the same satirical streak. The arcade games include caricatures of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel. In one version, the Hegseth character tells Trump to go outside and borrow Kid Rock’s helicopter to get to the war zone, or says his delts are combat ready.
There is no mistaking the point. The group is mocking the administration’s effort to sell a war like a game, and it is doing so at a memorial only a short walk south of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The machines are also available to play online, extending the joke beyond the National Mall and into the same digital space the White House has used to glamorize the conflict.
Secret Handshake said the Trump administration knows the best way to sell combat is by making it look like a video game, arguing that official accounts have been pumping out what it called the sickest Iran War video game hype reels. The group said it wanted to take that idea “full throttle,” then introduced Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell as a high-octane, flag-waving, boots-on-the-ground simulator where freedom is deployed rather than debated. That is the message the installation lands on the Mall today: if war is being packaged like entertainment, it can be mocked like entertainment too.
The games are set to stay for only a few days, but the larger fight they satirize is already out in the open. The White House has treated the conflict as a content stream, and Secret Handshake has answered with a public prank that is as much protest as parody. For now, the memorial is hosting both.
