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America at War: We Should Be Worried About How We Got Here [1]
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Date: 2025-06-25
“There are moments of crisis, hours when the scales of history waver between life and death, destruction and redemption, victory and defeat. The masses sway back and forth among possibilities, and one mistaken step, small oversight, temporary confusion, or misperception might prove destructive. In such an hour, the presence of a leader who is courageous, quick-minded, far-sighted, and accomplished can make the difference between ruin and salvation.” – Former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion writing about former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
“Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.” – Author unknown
***
America went to war last weekend.
I don’t care what those who are trying to minimize this event have to say. The fact is America went to war against another sovereign nation. United States airplanes, piloted by U.S. military personnel, dropped 14 U.S. bunker buster bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites – the first time they had been used in combat – thus entering into that country’s war with Israel.
That’s what going to war looks like.
Nobody knows how this is going to end. We now have a ceasefire between Israel and Iran that’s probably about as fragile as a porcelain figurine. Will it be enough to hold back Israel’s bloodlust and Iran’s belligerence? I don’t know.
Personally, although I agree that we have to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons, if possible, I don’t agree that this was the time to insert the United States into another war in the Middle East. And while we don’t know how much more Trump will authorize in military support for the war, we do know we’re part of the mess now, and that’s not a good thing.
But Trump’s actual decision doesn’t bother me as much as something else – the process that led to it. How did the most powerful man in the world come to make maybe the most important decision he’s faced in his four-plus years in office?
Who cares? Well, even if this decision works out a flawed process makes it more likely the next critical call won’t, and the opinion here is it was very flawed.
Trump’s acolytes like to talk about how good the president is at using his “gut” to make decisions. The truth is those gifted with such a “gut” are few and far between, and I’ve seen nothing so far that tells me our four-time indicted, twice-impeached, sexual assaulter, tax fraudster, insurrection inspirer, wannabe fascist dictator, convicted felon, Russia puppet of a president comes even close to falling into that category.
So, let’s look at the process as best we can.
For starters, is his ordering our country into war with Iran even legal?
An opinion piece authored by Yale law professor Oona A. Hathaway titled, “Trump’s Strikes on Iran Were Unlawful. Here’s Why That Matters.,” was published on the New York Times website.
Hathaway explained that Trump didn’t seek approval from Congress or the United Nations Security Council for the attack, actions that are required by the law and the U.N charter, respectively.
Only Congress has the power to declare war on another nation. The 1973 War Powers Act requires a president to seek approval from Congress before sending U.S. armed forces “into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.”
By skipping Congress, “The president has thus claimed for himself power that the Constitution expressly gives to Congress,” Hathaway wrote.
The U.N. Security Council must vote to authorize a member nation going to war. “This prohibition on the unilateral resort to force is the foundational principle of the postwar legal order,” Hathaway said.
The exception to both these rules is the president can act if our country is under attack, which in the case of Iran it clearly wasn’t. As Hathaway said: Trump has launched a war “that lacks any plausible domestic or international legal authority.”
“The unlawful strikes have thus laid bare the dangerous absence of any effective legal constraints – whether domestic or international – on the decision of the American president to use deadly force anywhere in the world.
“Donald Trump has now fully embraced the so-called Bush doctrine, a foreign policy stance that holds that the United States can use force pre-emptively against a perceived threat – to itself or others. This was the key legal basis for the disastrous 2003 war in Iraq, held up as necessary to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction – weapons that, it turned out, did not exist.”
You can read the Times column here.
The Times ran an extensive look at the leadup to Trump’s decision in a story titled, “Shifting Views and Misdirection: How Trump Decided to Strike Iran.”
The story is a must read. One of the interesting things in it was how military leaders were afraid that Trump would tip off the attack with his incessant tweeting and statements. One military official said the president was the “biggest threat to opsec,” or operational security, that the plan faced.
Think how sad that is: “Mr. President, please put your phone down and stop posting, you’re going to give away our secret military plans.” Pathetic.
You can read the Times story here.
***
So, let’s get back to our original concern: the process that led to our going to war with Iran.
Here’s some things that scare the hell out of me:
*Trump’s intelligence agencies told him that Iran wasn’t at the point where it was building a nuclear weapon, but the president publicly said they were wrong and went along with the claims of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s been falsely claiming Iran was very close to such a weapon for over a decade.
*Leading up to the decision, Trump’s team was closely monitoring how their most prominent supporters were reacting on social media and on television to the prospect of the United States joining the war in a more visible way. Historic, life-and-death decisions were being made in part by seeing what the right-wing chattering class had to say.
*After the attack, Trump crowed that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.” But the Times reported Tuesday that a preliminary classified U.S. report says the bombings set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months. Is Trump going to deny his own intelligence agencies again? Can we trust anything he says about any upcoming military action or conflict? The answer is no.
*There’s a concern, even among the MAGA crowd, that the bombings are the start of a more involved U.S. effort to affect regime change in Iran. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have said that’s not the goal, but Trump posted this: It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!
*The Republican-controlled Congress appears to be willing to remain subservient to Trump and allow his continued usurping of their powers. In other words, they have no interest in standing in the way as our country moves towards authoritarianism and the possible needless deaths of U.S. military personal on the whim of a grossly unfit president.
In her column, Hathaway calls for Congress to prohibit the use of federal funds for any use of force that exceeds the president’s legal authority.
“For too long, our lawmakers have acquiesced in the gradual draining away of their constitutional authority,” she wrote. “They must act now to reclaim that power before it is gone for good and the world pays for our mistakes.”
Pay for our mistakes? We’ve already been doing that.
Now we’ll see how much Trump’s military power grab adds to the bill.
***
Thank you for reading my post. You can see my other writings on my blog: Musings of a Nobody. Also, please check out our newsletter: Musings of a Nobody — The Newsletter and our video blog: Musings of a Nobody — The Podcast. Please share and subscribe for free to all or some if you’d like.
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