Observer

A Trump-Branded War ... At Least For Now

It used to be that Americans fought wars. Now it seems as though our president fights them. Or at least that’s how this war is being framed.

It is striking to note how many news accounts describe the assault on Iran as a Donald Trump production. As in, “Trump bombs Iran” or “Trump unleashes attack on Tehran.” A headline on a right-wing news site complained that Jane Fonda dared to criticize Trump “as he struck Iran.” Fonda surely was delighted to discover that she still can stir up MAGA outrage, even at the age of 88.

We don’t know the precise whereabouts of the president after he left a swanky party with his fellow Epstein classmates on Friday night. Perhaps he was indeed hustled off to an air base and squeezed into the cockpit of a B-2 bomber before it hurtled toward the Persian Gulf. (I assume it is still called the Persian Gulf, by the way, or is it now called the Other Gulf of America? Five dollars says it will be called the Gulf of Trump in time for July 4.)

It’s a fair guess, of course, that the great orange warrior actually was very much out of harm’s way when the bombs started falling over the weekend, as he was decades ago when his peers fought in Vietnam. We all know what he once said about soldiers who die in combat.

When troops are dispatched to invade another country under the brand name of the nation’s leader, it’s generally a sign that the nation in question is governed by an autocrat who places personal power above national interest. We hear about Putin’s assault on Ukraine, Xi’s potential move against Taiwan, Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, Hitler’s march across the Low Countries.

But I’ve never heard D Day described as “Roosevelt’s assault on Normandy.” Churchill’s name was never attached to the British victory over the Afrika Corps at El Alamein. Woodrow Wilson didn’t turn back the Germans near the Marne. In a functioning democracy, wars are carried out with the consent of the people and are executed as a collective enterprise. The armed forces ought to represent the nation, not the will of a single person. Putin invaded Ukraine, but Ukrainians are defending their homeland. Hitler invaded France in 1940. The Allies invaded France in 1944. It’s an important distinction.

But in 2026, Trump bombed Iran. And that says it all.

It’s a measure of where we are and how far we’ve come since the last time we formally declared war. That was 1941. Trump is only the latest in a long line of presidents who have ordered the military into harm’s way without asking Congress for a formal declaration. It probably came as a surprise to Trump when he learned (if anybody dared to tell him) that presidents don’t have the power to declare war. Our Founders, in their wisdom, believed that the people, through their representatives in Congress, ought to decide whether or not to go to war. They feared centralizing that kind of power in one person, for they had studied and experienced for themselves the dangers of placing armed forces under the command of unaccountable and half-mad potentates seething with personal grievances.

But that sounds so 18^th Century.

If Trump’s actions are but a variation on a theme – the theme being Gustav Holst’s “Mars, The Bringer of Wars” – it must be said that his method is madness. Unlike even George W. Bush, who led us into catastrophe in Iraq, Trump never deigned to explain in advance why military action might be necessary, why the lives of American soldiers would have to put at risk, and why Iran posed a danger to American security.

He didn’t explain because he believes no explanation is required. That’s generally what autocrats believe. But even Putin understood that he had sell his country on the war with Ukraine. Trump could have tried to make a similar sale when he delivered his State of the Union address just before the attacks. Instead, he made a mockery of the proceedings, to the cringe-inducing delight of fools and half-wits. Then again, perhaps it’s just as well that he avoided a sales pitch – after all, Trump’s sales pitches are the first step on a path that invariably leads to bankruptcy court.

It is possible to regret and even condemn all of this and still hope for as good an outcome as possible, whatever that may be. The administration, not surprisingly, is having trouble describing exactly what a good outcome would be. A more-stable, less-repressive and more-humane government in Iran certainly would qualify, although whether that result is worth the lives of American soldiers is open to question.

One thing is certain: If the outcome is not good, it will not be Donald Trump’s fault.

Trump’s war will somehow become Obama’s war.

It’s what autocrats do.