Back in the early 2000s, in the final days of the American bumper sticker, there was one that repeatedly caught my eye. It was designed to look like an odometer or the reels on a slot machine—those little wheels with numbers or letters that rotate to track distance or to spell a word. This one had four spots, the first three set to I–R–A. At the end, a Q was sliding out of the fourth spot, and an N moved into its place.
That slide was slower than many anticipated, but two decades later, the United States is at war with Iran. Anyone of good conscience must hope it all works out for the Iranian people: that civilian lives are scrupulously spared, that the oppressive theocracy in Tehran falls, that a free, safe, and prosperous Iran soon emerges from the rubble.
That’s certainly my hope. But the past quarter century of US foreign policy suggests that it’s a hope in vain and that Iran will follow Iraq in more than mere chronology.
American wars of regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya proved bloody, costly, and counterproductive, rife with unintended consequences for the security of the United States and the stability of the greater Middle East. And the broader record of recent US military intervention in the region—in Yemen, Somalia, and Syria—is hardly more encouraging. It’s no coincidence that our last three presidents all campaigned on ending this kind of war.
And what our government is doing in Iran is a war, contrary to what some feckless congressional dissemblers have claimed. Much like former president Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya in 2011, President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran constitute a war without constitutional authorization, national debate, demonstration of necessity, or a clear endgame. Holding on to hope almost feels like a fool’s errand.
Consider the legal basis for this war—or rather, its absence. The US Constitution vests Congress with the power to declare war, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq was prefaced by intense national debate and a vote to authorize the use of military force. That vote happened in October of 2002, and the invasion began in March of 2003.
This time around, it was apparent for weeks that President Donald Trump was seriously considering strikes on Iran. But he didn’t bother to ask Congress for approval, and Congress didn’t bother with debate.
Only after the war started did our lawmakers muster some action—if it even deserves that name. The Senate voted down a resolution that would have ended the war unless it were explicitly authorized by Congress, but those wastrels in the House truly outdid themselves, voting not to vote by blocking consideration of a nonbinding resolution. These votes largely broke along party lines, as is typical of disagreements on presidential power. Yet even Democratic lawmakers who say they’re opposed to the war show little sign of having spine enough to stop it.
The most prominent dissenter on the Republican side is Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul, who sponsored the failed Senate bill. “Americans were not asked if they would bear the burdens of war,” Paul wrote in an op-ed for Fox News. We were merely provided with a social media announcement in the small hours of the morning.
“Because there was no national discussion about going to war, we do not know whether ground troops will be used,” Paul continued:
We have no idea how long the war will last. We have no idea who will lead Iran after the death of the supreme leader. And we have no idea how many casualties the American people are supposed to tolerate. We cannot know the answer to these questions because no one bothered to make the case that war with Iran was worth the sacrifice.
These questions of necessity, purpose, and outcome are not trifling matters. They cannot be brushed aside with the false urgency presidents tend to foster when they don’t want to wait for congressional approval and popular support. (A Reuters/Ipsos poll published March 1 found just one in four Americans back the war.)
Recent comments from Trump indicate he has expansive ideas about Iran. Initially declaring that “all” he wants is “freedom for the people,” he has since added eliminating Iran’s nuclear program (ostensibly “obliterated” in strikes last summer), for Iran to have “no ballistic missiles,” and for “somebody that is rational and sane” to lead in Tehran. In a particularly bizarre moment, he speculated that Iran’s military forces may simply give their weapons to the very protesters they’ve been shooting. And as for timeline, there is none: “I have no time limits on anything,” Trump told Time magazine. “I want to get it done.”
That sounds suspiciously like the “endless wars” and nation building Trump campaigned against—and a boon for what’s left of the Iranian regime. Tehran remains in the hands of hardliners and has no hope of conventional conquest. But it might well be able to pull the United States into another generational morass, another ghastly waste of lives, money, and strength.
Late last month, Vice President JD Vance said there was “no chance” that “we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight.” That too may be a hope in vain. With no meaningful accountability from Congress and a president known to keep every option on the table, we can only wait and see.
In the meantime, the sheer durability of this pattern—of the American people voting for presidents who promise peace, only to have those very presidents start more wars—is discouraging. Hopeless, even. That’s the word I want to use, overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu here at the end of yet another article about lawless presidential warmaking in the Middle East.
In a sense, perhaps, hopeless is the right word where mundane politics are concerned. “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” (Prov. 26:11), and it never serves to put our “trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save” (Ps. 146:3). These are the passages that keep coming to mind as I follow the news from Iran. What else can I think?
But difficult though it may be amid the rising fog of war, I remind myself—and you—that neither this war nor any war or evil will have the final say. That we can and should look to a day without grimly circular news cycles, without violence and tyranny and strife and lies. That death itself will be destroyed, along with “all dominion, authority and power,” all error and inhumanity and moral sloth (1 Cor. 15:24–28).
We can count on it. And we can look with greater eagerness for the coming of that prince of peace of Matthew 12, who “will not quarrel or cry out,” who brings “justice through to victory,” and in whose “name the nations will put their hope.”
Bonnie Kristian is deputy editor at Christianity Today.
