Dispatch from Washington

Well, Donald Trump did it. After months of threatening an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump acted in close co-ordination with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and launched a strike against the country.  Notwithstanding the loss of three United States (US) military personnel, and the death of at least 10 Israeli civilians killed by Iranian missiles, so far, the war seems to be going well for the allied forces and badly for the Islamic Republic.

The response in Washington, DC has been mixed, reflecting the deep political and cultural divisions in the country. Overall, those on the political Right have cheered Trump’s actions, while those on the Left have decried them.  Democratic lawmakers, joined by Congress’s most libertarian member, the Republican Thomas Massey, look set to push for a vote in Congress to declare Trump’s actions illegal.

At issue is whether the US faced an imminent threat from Iran. The Constitution does require the president to seek congressional authorisation prior to using force, however, as the lawyer and former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy argues, the president may act if there are true threats to vital American interests. Such threats need not be imminent.

Should Congress vote on this military action, it is far from clear that Trump would lose the vote, though the political calculus might change if there are more US casualties.

Choice

A popular trope is that this is a “war of choice” and that negotiations with the Islamic Republic would have yielded results. Yet this attitude requires us to ignore the fact that the Iranians consistently lied during negotiations while continuing to fund terrorist networks. And how anyone could have faith in negotiations with a regime that murdered more than 30 000 of its own civilians in two days, including entering hospitals to murder people while they were receiving treatment, beggars belief.

Another popular trope is that the US is simply doing the bidding of the Israelis. Such an attitude is probably rooted in antisemitism and the idea that the Jews must be behind wars everywhere. In fact, as we have seen, the IDF along with its intelligence networks on the ground in Iran have been invaluable partners, equals even, of the US military.

And in any event, ever since October 7th, it has, in fact, been Israel that has done more than any country to defend Western civilisation. Israel is an outpost of the West in a deeply hostile region, and it is defending US interests, even as the Islamists’ useful idiots chant for globalising the Intifada in cities and on university campuses across America.

Fluid Situation

This is obviously a very dynamic situation, and The Common Sense will be following it closely. The Islamic regime may well cling on and given its psychopathic nature and penchant for brutal repression, there may not be regime change or an end to the suffering of the Iranian people soon. However, this weekend’s actions have shown that Trump will go down as one of the most consequential US presidents in recent history and when it comes to threats to the homeland, is not to be trifled with. Writing in TheWall Street Journal , Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia, opined: “Dictators around the world will draw a powerful message from Mr Trump’s actions: that they can proceed against weaker nations as they please, and America no longer has the credibility to assert important principles of sovereignty, diplomacy, or human rights.”

Contra Mr Kaine, one could draw the opposite conclusion: that dictators around the world with think twice before murdering their own people, supporting terrorist networks, and threatening the West. Trump’s actions cannot be divorced from his economic pressure against Russia, his increased pressure on Cuba, and his seizing of Nicolás Maduro. Few people are probably following events more closely than the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party as it weighs up if and when to invade Taiwan. Testing Mr Trump’s resolve just became more risky.

Tren is a director of the Washington, DC-based Yorktown Foundation for Freedom.