With his attack on Iran Saturday night, Donald Trump dragged the US to the verge of a war he has no authority to declare.
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A day after lamenting that nobody is giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump plunged the US headfirst into exactly the kind of conflict that he promised to keep America out of. In the process, he not only attacked Iran but also, once again, carpet-bombed the constitutional order at home… with nearly all Republicans cheering him on.
Late Saturday evening, the president announced that the US military carried out attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites. While Trump called them “successful,” there is really no way of knowing yet whether these strikes will have the desired effect of taking out Iran’s nuclear program.
In fact, his decision to authorize the attack only adds to the chaos in the Middle East.
In a best-case scenario, an opposition to the government in Tehran forms that could lead to regime change. But that will likely be messy and take time.
In the worst case, the US will find itself in another war in the region.
At the very least, in the short run, Trump’s decision is putting American lives at risk because Iran will likely retaliate in some way, whether directly or through its proxies. And, since the president likes to play the tough guy, that would lead to a further escalation.
Trump, who is notoriously untethered from reality, sees things differently.
“NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!” he wrote in a social media post announcing the attack that was heavy on bravado and naïveté.
The one thing that is certain on this Saturday night is that Trump once again usurped a power – the ability to declare war – that was constitutionally granted to Congress.
And emasculated GOP lawmakers, once again, cheered on the president as he did so.
“The President made the right call, and did what he needed to do. Leaders in Congress were aware of the urgency of this situation and the Commander-in-Chief evaluated that the imminent danger outweighed the time it would take for Congress to act,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
Of course, there is no such “urgency.” Iran did not pose any greater threat to the US and Americans last week than it did in previous years… at least not until Saturday’s attack.
Trump essentially admitted that in a televised address Saturday night, when he said that Iran has been threatening the US for the past 40 years, and that this attack went a “long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel,” i.e., not to the US, which would have given him a justification for authorizing the strikes.
In his statement, Johnson (ridiculously) added that Trump “fully respects the Article I power of Congress, and tonight’s necessary, limited, and targeted strike follows the history and tradition of similar military actions under presidents of both parties.”
For their part, Democrats strongly criticized the president’s decision on the grounds of its unconstitutionality, with some of them arguing that Trump committed yet another impeachable offense.
“The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). “He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”
In other words, it was business as usual in Washington.
Not in Tel Aviv, however, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the attack… and his ability to drag the US into the conflict.
Netanyahu, who is well aware that flattery is the key to manipulating Trump, hailed the president’s “bold decision” to authorize the attack.
“America has done what no other country on Earth could do,” he said in a video statement, adding that Trump’s “leadership today has created a pivot in history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond into a period of prosperity and peace.”
That remains to be seen.
What is clear is that this is a perilous and volatile situation, which is why it is not exactly comforting to know that the US military is led by an insane commander-in-chief and a Fox News talk show host.
