Like the rest of you, I am sitting here as a captive to global events well beyond my ability to affect, control, or even hope to have much informed commentary about. We have struck Iran in conjunction with Israel. Unlike last summer, the campaign is nowhere near finished. We are promised a “short campaign,” but with no definition of what that is, or even what the mission properly is. I remain unconvinced that it was a wise idea to launch these strikes, but also fully recognize that once the decision has been taken we are pot-committed. To that end, my overwhelming impulse is to root for American success and pray for the safety of our men and women currently serving in harm’s way.
And I want more than a canned eight-minute speech from the president of the United States explaining to the American people the reasons for this momentous commitment. Congress is owed more than a last-minute briefing, however cheaply they currently treat their own powers and responsibilities. Normal citizens deserve to hear the president make his case for the war, regardless of whether Congress has the legal authority to do a thing about it. (Plot twist: I happen to believe the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional and has been since the day it was adopted over Nixon’s veto in 1973.)
I hope for the best, and I cannot help but cheer the end of some of the world’s worst people — and the regime itself, should that come. But we are owed more than what we have yet been given as explanation. I hear the Iranians are currently having trouble producing the Ayatollah Khamenei to deliver a speech as proof of life. (Cross your fingers.) All the more reason for Trump to explain himself to Congress.