A MAN, A PLAN, IRAN
Who authorized this latest U.S. war?
Waging undeclared wars willy-nilly has been an American tradition since World War II. But Saturday’s Operation Midnight Hammer blow to Iran by U.S. B-2 bombers and submarine-launched cruise missiles has taken things to a whole new level. Want proof? Well, here is a list of the wars launched by the U.S. since that “Good War,” and the populations of those nations under attack by the U.S. In all these conflicts, lawmakers of both parties have legislatively winked at presidents of both parties, eagerly subcontracting out responsibility for how things turned out:
Iran, with a population of 90 million, has more people than any of those — and more than all of them put together. (Something worth knowing, even if Iran war hawk Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), a member of the foreign relations committee, does not.)
Iran’s nuclear-weapons effort is a boil that needs to be lanced. Preferably through diplomacy, but via destruction if required. Here’s hoping a fragile ceasefire holds. Bully for the president if his draw to an inside straight works. But Tehran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. The rush to war was all inside Trump’s head, egged on by Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. A Washington Post poll conducted before the attacks showed only 25% of those Americans surveyed supported the idea, with a commanding 45% opposed.
This is a war of choice, launched by a commander-in-chief who failed to garner a majority of the votes cast for president last year. Officially, Congress was a bystander to the most consequential act the U.S. can take against another nation. Incredibly, and sadly, the Trump administration reportedly briefed Republican congressional leadership, but no House Democrats, before the bombs fell.
Trump, who pledged to refrain from the “forever wars” that cost nearly 7,000 (PDF) Americans their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, is hoping for a short one. But, as they like to say at the Pentagon, hope is not a strategy. “Well,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth conceded when asked about this U.S.-Iran war’s duration, “anything can happen in conflict.”
The notion of a president unilaterally attacking a major country — one the Founding Fathers knew as Persia — without a formal declaration of war from Congress surely would have left them dumbfounded.
It should also be of grave concern to all Americans. They keep re-electing lawmakers who, for the past 80 years, have refused to fulfill their fundamental obligation to their constituents, the Constitution, and the people — military and civilian, friend and foe — who will perish because of their elected representatives’ persistent pusillanimous perfidy.