A week ago Saturday's US attack on 3 Iranian nuclear facilities sadly wasn't all so secret. Earlier this month he called for Iran's unconditional surrender and hinted at regime change. He had grumbled about the slow resolution of negotiations with Iran and implied he could make an unspecified decision within 2 weeks. He had repeatedly vowed Iran would never be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb. Israel did not possess American bunker-busting bomb capabilities necessary to penetrate Iranian underground nuclear facilities. And never forget Trump in his first term assassinated Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian government official which I still consider an unprvoked act of war. While Trump pretended to have an open mind over his 2-week ultimatum, the fact that Israel had damaged Iranian air defenses had dramatically lowered the risks to American intervention.
Still. Trump, who was a registered Democrat during Bush 43's administration, had been a critic of their Iraq intervention. largely motivated by a similar WMD rationalization. His reworked signature construct of "America First" is challenged by the intervention, which core MAGA Trumpkins like MTG regard as a fundamental betrayal of neo-isolationist principles.
Still, there is a nuance to Trump's foreign policy and a key constituency, evangelical Christians, with a special tilt/focus on Israel. Trump is proud of his staunch support of Israel, "God's chosen people" for evangelicals. He boasts of his unprecedented support for Israel: in fact, he unilaterally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The second fact was the bitter history of the Iranian hostage crisis in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution, which arguably cost Jimmy Carter his reelection. Americans probably didn't recall the CIA involvement in the 1953 Iranian coup. But George W. Bush listed Iran as part of his Axis of Evil and (even earlier) Reagan had designated Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, eventually linked to groups such as as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a key supplier of sophisticated IEDs and other weapons targeting Americans. among others, in the occupation of Iraq.
But from the standpoint of a libertarian, Iran is not an existential threat to the US, some 7000+ miles away and beyond the range of its missiles and its military in general. (That being said, some of its overseas bases are within range). Iran's military is not competitive with the size, scope and capability of the American military.
Constitutionally, Trump did not have legal or constitutional authority to attack Iran. He did not have an imminent threat. Whether or not Iran should be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon is not legitimate grounds for a military attack; We are not the world's policeman. Congress has the sole responsibility to declare war It cannot be delegated to the POTUS. Moreover, Trump did not even consult with all Congressional leadership before his impeachable action: " While House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Republican leader John Thune and the GOP chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee all were briefed before the action, their counterparts were not." This is the same BS as before his assassination of Soleimani. Notification of some leaders is not a substitute for the necessity for a Congressional declaration of war.
It's not just Trump's violation of the Constitution: he has lied about the results of his attacks allegedly obliterating the Iranian program:
According to the DIA report, the strikes failed to destroy Iran's underground facilities and likely set its nuclear program back by only a few months....On Sunday, Rafael Grossi, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran could resume uranium enrichment "within a matter of months." Grossi noted it was highly likely the sensitive centrifuges used to enrich uranium inside Fordow were badly damaged, but it's far less clear whether Iran's 9 tonnes of enriched uranium were destroyed. Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to the chairman of the Iranian parliament, claimed that Iranian authorities had evacuated the Fordow facility in advance, hence "no irreversible damage" was sustained during that attack.
In my judgment, Trump's unapproved Iran attack violated the Congress' fundamental, sole responsibility to declare war. Trump must be impeached and removed from office.
