This Is Not How Democracies Go to War. It’s How Dictators Do.
It’s not just that Donald Trump cannot explain why he is about to start a war with Iran; the worst part is that he is not even trying.Trump has hardly said a word about Iran over the past week, even in his State of the Union address. Congress is a bystander. There are no hearings, no debate, no public support. Yet, whether America plunges into a dangerous, unpredictable major war appears to rest on the whims of one man. Even King George needed the approval of the British Parliament before he could wage war against the rebellious American colonies. Trump has remained mum as he orders the largest military buildup in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.The 2003 buildup was accompanied by months of public campaigning by President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and, famously, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who tried to convince the American public and the United Nations that Saddam Hussein was behind the September 11 attacks and possessed massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that posed an imminent threat to the United States and the region. Not a word of it was true, but the lies cowed Congress and convinced the majority of Americans that we had to invade.There is none of that now. Neither the U.N. Security Council nor our global or regional allies support this war. European and Arab nations have refused to allow Trump to use their bases for his war.There is one exception. As in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is cheerleading for war, hoping to realize his decades-long dream of overthrowing the Iranian government, while bracing Israel for the expected missile attacks in response. Trump officials, though, are largely quiet, proffering scattered arguments about the repressive nature of the regime, the weakness of the regime, the danger of Iran’s medium-range missiles somehow reaching America and, surprisingly, the nuclear threat.Surprisingly, because after the 12 days of bomber attacks and assassinations by Israel and the U.S. last June, Trump declared that the Iranian nuclear program was “obliterated.” Now Trump’s envoy for everything, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News last weekend that Iran is “a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.”Is all this just a bluff? Maybe it was originally, but the massive amount of weaponry now assembled indicates that if this is a bluff, it is a very good one. By one account, the deployments represent 40 to 50 percent of all the deployable U.S. combat aircraft in the world. Countries don’t amass that kind of force unless they intend to use it. Despite progress in talks with Iran—that Iran has smartly sweetened with offers to let Trump, Witkoff, and their friends get rich from investments in Iran’s oil and gas sector—the momentum toward war may be a force in itself. But the deciding factor may have more to do with domestic threats than foreign ones.With none of Trump’s public rationales making any sense, the most compelling reason to start a war seems to be to distract from the growing Epstein files scandal. His popularity plummeting, his MAGA coalition fracturing, and new disclosures from the Epstein files coming every day and getting more graphic on his possible involvement in sexual abuse, Trump needs to change the conversation. War with Venezuela worked for a while, but something bigger is needed now. A sustained war may also help him declare a state of emergency that he wants to justify interference in elections he is now likely to lose.The truly scary part is that Trump himself may not know what he wants. He cares nothing about the expense of these deployments, the toll on the sailors and aircrews, the damage the strikes will do to innocent Iranian civilians, or the turmoil an extended war will cause in the region and to global economies. He may yet decide that he will accept an apparent offer from the Iranians to suspend and severely restrict their enrichment of uranium. But it is a decision he and he alone will make. This is how dictators go to war.On Thursday—finally—some members of Congress rediscovered their constitutional responsibilities. House Democratic leaders, joined by two Republicans, will force a vote on a bipartisan bill by Californian Democratic Representative Ro Khanna and Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie, which would require Trump to win approval from Congress before launching any strikes. With the GOP firmly against the bill and supporters of Israel pressuring Democrats to vote against it, the measure is likely to fail.Likely, that is, unless the overwhelming opposition to war with Iran—seven out of 10 voters do not want this war—becomes more tangible. It will require a wave of public arguments against the war and a massive outpouring of calls and emails to Congress to convince Trump that this war is too politically risky. Even for a wannabe dictator.