Dear John,
Last week, the United States bombed Iran.
A single person – Donald J. Trump – released the dogs of war on one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and did it without the consent of Congress or our allies, or even a clear explanation to the American people.
Anyone who has doubted Trump’s intention to replace American democracy with a dictatorship should now be fully disabused.
I share your despair, sadness, and fear. Even if our president were a wise and judicious man, surrounded by thoughtful advisers with impeccable integrity and wisdom, this would be a highly dangerous move.
A shaky ceasefire resolution is holding for now, but we must ensure that Trump can’t unilaterally drag us into war in the future.
Bipartisan resolutions in both the House and Senate are aimed at reasserting the Constitutional mandate that only Congress has the authority to declare war.
Republican House Rep. Thomas Massie has joined Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and 14 other members in sponsoring a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to prohibit further military involvement in Iran. On the Senate side, Senator Tim Kaine has sponsored his own resolution, which has secured at least four Republican co-sponsors, Sens. Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Todd Young and Susan Collins.
Both of these resolutions are “privileged,” which means after 15 days, they must be debated and voted on whether Republican leadership in either House wants it to happen or not.
Send a direct message now to demand that Congress pass the bipartisan War Powers Resolutions in the House and Senate to prohibit further military involvement in Iran!
Trump’s action raises more questions than answers, but here are the thoughts of several experts I’ve spoken with:
Why is Trump taking us into war with Iran? Trump might think the attacks give him more bargaining leverage with Iran. But more likely, he thinks the attacks will divert attention from his multiple failures at home: global resistance to tariffs, judicial blocks on deportations, his “big beautiful bill” stuck in the Senate, the public tiff with Musk, failures in Ukraine and Gaza.
And of course, he wants to cover up this month’s record-breaking “No Kings” demonstrations, with crowds vastly outnumbering his scrawny military parade. There’s nothing like a war to help a wannabe dictator justify more “emergency” powers.
Is (or was) Iran building a nuclear weapon? No one knows for sure. In March, Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, testified before Congress that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,” but Iran’s growing stockpile of enriched uranium could allow it to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
In the face of such uncertainty, it’s useful to recall George W. Bush’s claims of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” that proved bogus – at a cost of 4,431 American lives, 31,994 Americans wounded in action, and an estimated 295,000 Iraqi lives.
Will the American public support Trump in this war? Some will. But a drawn-out war in Iran will be deeply unpopular. According to a recent YouGov poll, only 16 percent of Americans thought the U.S. military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran; 60 percent said it should not.
The war will not be over quickly. A ceasefire holds for now, but how can we trust Trump to keep it intact? Hostilities could go on for months or years, at a substantial cost of human life. Trump may send in American ground troops if tensions escalate. The mere possibility could give Trump more license to restrict civil liberties at home.
I hope Democrats will use the War Powers Act to force a vote on the war, putting Republican lawmakers in the awkward position of voting for a war that’s immensely unpopular and can easily go very badly.
Demand that Congress pass the bipartisan War Powers Resolutions in both houses of Congress and stop the next never-ending war in the Middle East before it escalates fully out of control.
Thank you for standing up for peace. Be strong. Be safe. Hug your loved ones.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
