In the not-so-distant past, a major U.S. military strike on a foreign power announced in a private social media post by the commander-in-chief would have seemed like satire. Add to it a cheesy USA baseball cap, allegations of sexual crimes swirling around him and shifting rationales for the action and you have the makings of an over-the-top political parody.

But this is the reality show brought to you by President Donald Trump. U.S. and Israel attacks on Iran, begun on Feb. 28, killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many other leaders of the Islamic Republic along with hundreds of civilians. Counterattacks by Iranian drones and missiles have left six U.S. military personnel and nearly a dozen Israelis dead so far and sent oil prices spiking.

There is nothing funny about death, destruction and destabilization in the volatile Middle East and the abandonment of constitutional order by a president intent on unilateral decision-making. And there is no certainty that such “wag-the-dog” diversions will make Trump’s ties to convicted sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein go away, especially with the recent discovery of missing files tying Trump to abuse testimony, or persuade voters to back the GOP in what is shaping up to be a disastrous outing for Republicans in the fall midterm elections.

We can agree that the 47-year reign of the Shia clerics over the Islamic Republic has left Iran and its people in tough shape. Battered by sanctions, buffeted by corruption and cowed by repression, Iran’s 92 million people have suffered enormously. Massive protests in January resulted in security forces gunning down tens of thousands of Iranians who turned out in the streets. Theocratic rule, enforced by the brutal Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, has driven some five million Iranians into exile since the 1979 fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Trump included in his eight-minute war video a call for the Iranian people to rise up and take back their country, while knowing that an air campaign alone might eliminate some leaders but will not overthrow a regime. Scenes of Iranians celebrating the ayatollah’s death in their homeland or on the streets of Paris, London and “Tehrangeles,” as some call L.A.’s Persian community, raise false hopes of deliverance.

Nor is an extended aerial bombardment likely to entirely degrade the country’s development of ballistic missiles or even end steps towards nuclear weapons — programs that went deeper underground after June’s 12-day war against Iran. Trump, having abandoned his campaign pledges to avoid foreign wars and concentrate on “America First,” seems to be recycling the Venezuela strategy he unleashed on our South American neighbor when Delta Force commandoes snatched President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas and brought him in chains to the United States to face trial.

Fears of being targeted by American firepower — guided by extraordinary intelligence technology and human assets on the ground — have made Venezuelan’s leadership more compliant with U.S. wishes, especially in its submission to what becomes of its valuable oil reserves. Trump’s team obviously hopes Iran’s new leadership will get the same memo and not only bend petroleum policy to align with U.S. interests but also end the support of terrorist proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Houthis in Yemen.

If there’s an overarching argument to be made for Trump’s approach, he has not brought along Congress or the American public as partners in the shaping of his far-reaching war policies. He barely mentioned Iran in his February State of the Union address and has ignored his Article 1 obligation in the U.S. Constitution to reserve for Congress the power to declare war, reflecting a long erosion of Capitol Hill oversight of military adventures abroad.

House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries, one of the most powerful Black men in government, criticized Trump over the weekend for ignoring the concerns of American households over affordability while ignoring the constitutional balance of powers.

“The administration somehow found the resources, has found billions of dollars for bombs but can’t find any money to actually bring down the high cost of living here in the United States of America,” Jeffries told CNN. “Article 1 of the Constitution explicitly provides Congress with the authority to declare war, period, full stop. And the framers of the Constitution made that decision because they were concerned about kings throughout time getting their people into unnecessary wars, impoverishing them or imperiling their very well-being by sending them off to a foreign conflict.”

While a War Powers Act resolution is coming up in Congress this week aimed at containing Trump’s military reach, it is not given much of a chance to pass — and certainly, if passed, not to survive a presidential veto.

One of the most disturbing angles on American action in Iran is the degree to which the notion of an imminent threat to U.S. interests is being subverted in favor of deference to the interests of a foreign power and to financial family interest. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, rightfully fearing that its rhetoric of “Death to Israel” may lead to a nuclear strike on the Jewish state. But how realistic are those hopes when you look at Israel’s failure to uproot Hamas after a four-year campaign in its own backyard?

Arab states in the Persian Gulf also rightly see Iran as a threat. Is it completely cynical to connect U.S. attacks on Iran to the billions of dollars poured into the coffers of Trump family business entities by Arab sovereign wealth funds? Is there any accident that such investments have occurred while Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been a lead negotiator in proximity talks with Iran while keeping his Arab business partners on speed dial?

We do not question that the world would be a safer place if Iran were not to foment disorder abroad, employ repression at home and join the caucus of nuclear states. Achieving those goals through diplomacy and building alliances is the kind of hard, grinding work rejected by Trump’s approach to governance. His record of playing fast and loose with tariffs is bad enough. The consequences of playing fast and loose with missiles, bunker-busting bombs and lethal drones are far worse. The president ends up undermining important global alliances while encouraging countries like Russia to continue its brutal campaign against Ukraine and China to hungrily eye Taiwan.

The ultimate irony of Trump’s warmongering is his constant quest for a Nobel Peace Prize. You just can’t make this up: a president who has taken military action against seven countries — Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, Iraq and Yemen — and threatened nations such as Mexico, Denmark and Canada hoping against hope to be crowned the Prince of Peace.

Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner