For a decade now, the nightmare scenario has been Donald Trump stumbling ass-backward into a major war with dire consequences for the U.S. and the world.
Well, that may have just happened.
Late on Friday night, the U.S. and Israel began a “massive” bombing campaign against Iran. This is not like the earlier strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Those were targeted strikes aimed at achieving a specific goal.
That’s not what is happening now.
Here are Trump’s own words, via a bizarre videotaped statement posted to Truth Social in the middle of the night:
The United States military has undertaken a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests. We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy.
The goal is not simply to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capacity. The purpose here is the same as in Iraq in 2003: regime change.
Trump told the Washington Post that “freedom for the Iranian people” was the major goal of the operation.
I can’t emphasize the stupidity and danger of launching a regime change war in Iran enough. Trump has made no public case for why we are doing this. There is no imminent threat. He has kinda, sorta claimed that this is about preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — the same Trump who told us last year that his previous strikes had already obliterated Iran’s nuclear program.
That post was still on the White House website as of Saturday morning.
Iran didn’t have the capacity to deploy a nuclear weapon back then. Even if Trump was lying about the efficacy of last year’s strikes, they don’t have that capacity now either.
If this war is about regime change, what’s the plan for what comes next? Who’s in charge? What are our goals? Are we going to occupy Iran to ensure freedom and democracy?
Not to mention the fact that this war is illegal. Congress has not authorized it. There is no existing authorization for the use of military force that applies here, and there is no documented imminent threat.
Maybe Trump does some bombing, gets bored, and moves on to something else. But if we take him at his word, this will be a protracted conflict that could cost American lives, destabilize the region, and spike energy prices here at home.
Democrats must loudly and boldly oppose this war. They have a moral responsibility and a political obligation to do so. If Democrats cannot bring themselves to oppose an idiotic, unjustified regime change war in the Middle East, they do not deserve the power they seek.
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The vast majority of Democrats are in the right place. Many have been loudly criticizing Trump and pointing out the stupidity and hypocrisy of this war. But we need to be as unified as possible and speak with one voice.
That starts with a vote in the House next week on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution, which would require Trump to seek congressional approval to continue bombing Iran. Almost every Democrat and at least one Republican is expected to vote for it.
Two Democrats — Josh Gottheimer and Jared Moskowitz — have said they will vote no. Moskowitz even obnoxiously called the resolution the “Ayatollah Protection Act.”
By blocking a Congressional vote on the war, Gottheimer and Moskowitz are playing cynical national security politics, and I hope they face vigorous primary challenges because of it.
The resolution could, but probably won’t, pass the House. Even if it passed the Senate, Trump would veto it, and there aren’t the votes to override.
That said, many of the Democrats who will vote for the resolution are less firm on the underlying policy question of the war itself.
Axios reported earlier this week that a potential U.S. strike on Iran is exposing a quiet but consequential split inside the Senate Democratic caucus. The Democratic base strongly opposes war with Iran, but some of Chuck Schumer’s colleagues are more open to military action — provided Congress has a say.
There’s a similar divide in the House. Democratic Congressman Greg Landsman issued a supportive statement on the strikes this morning.
Many Democrats, however, are trying to say as little as possible — neither endorsing nor opposing the strikes, dancing between the raindrops by being anti-Trump without being explicitly anti-war. This statement from Chuck Schumer is a good example:
When I talked to Secretary Rubio, I implored him to be straight with Congress and the American people about the objectives of these strikes and what comes next. Iran must never be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon, but the American people do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East when there are so many problems at home. The administration has not provided Congress and the American people with critical details about the scope and immediacy of the threat. Confronting Iran’s malign regional activities, nuclear ambitions, and harsh oppression of the Iranian people demands American strength, resolve, regional coordination, and strategic clarity. Unfortunately, President Trump’s fitful cycles of lashing out and risking wider conflict are not a viable strategy.
There are two reasons Democrats behave this way. Many still carry a post-9/11 mentality, perpetually worried about being cast as weak or unpatriotic by Republicans and the right-wing media machine. That fear is an increasingly outdated notion in today’s political environment, but learned helplessness is hard to unlearn.
There are also Democrats who genuinely believe that regime change in Iran is a top national security priority and are willing to support military force, under the right circumstances, to achieve it. That’s not a view I share — I think it means failing to absorb every lesson of Iraq — but it’s a position someone can hold in good faith.
Even so: how can anyone seriously believe that Donald Trump, a corrupt, erratic wannabe dictator who couldn’t find Iran on a map, is the right person to manage that incredibly complex undertaking? Even if the military achieves regime change, do we really want Trump deciding what comes next in Iran? His first priority will probably be a Trump-branded golf course outside Tehran.
The idea that Trump should be the one doing this is indefensible.
The American people are on our side. They don’t want this war. They elected Trump to stop wars, not start them.
Democrats need to stop complicating something that is actually pretty simple — and loudly, boldly oppose a dumb and dangerous man launching a dumb and dangerous war for no good reason.
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