Trump's drone strikes against two leading Iranian military commanders in Iraq were done without the usual consultation with Congress or even the Iraqi government, though the attack occurred in Iraq. Trump is arguing this was a one day strike event, and therefore no consultation with Congress is necessary, as the War Powers Act of 1973 requires consultation if the conflict is to last more than seven days. Yet, Trump is dispatching thousands of troops to the region and is bracing for more violence, and therefore conflict that will last much more than seven days.
Trump fans must love Trump not trusting either Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) or Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and probably sardonically say to themselves how Congress can't keep a secret. Yet, Trump told random guests at his palatial Mar-a-Lago resort that a strike concerning Iran was expected. Further, notwithstanding the Iranian response may occur against US forces stationed in Europe, Trump did not provide any pre-strike briefing to European leaders, not even to Trump's fellow Fascist International member, UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
Trump also claims US lives were in "imminent" danger, but so far no evidence has emerged to support this claim, and we need not go into presidential mendacity and US foreign policy history, ahem, cough, cough, Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq weapons of mass destruction, to refuse to take any such Trump assertion at face value. Trump, however, needs to say there was "imminent danger" to provide even the slightest fig leaf to cover his conduct.
So why would Trump do this at this time? It is easy to speculate Trump did this to scare the American people as the US House of Representatives has just impeached him. Certainly, this was what many believed led Clinton to bomb a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, which had followed attacks on US embassies in various places around that time. It would be wrong to simply reject that speculation with a person as self-centered as Trump, and therefore we should wait and see what evidence either way comes to light. More compelling to me is military consultant, sci-fi author, and astrophysicist, David Brin's take about Trump's general policy with respect to Iran. Brin has long asserted Trump's belligerent policies against Iran have been intended, as part of their design, to drive the Iranians into the arms of Trump's ally, Russia's Vladimir Putin--and this will certainly drive Iran further into Russia's embrace. Russia and Iran have just formalized joint media promotion and in developing and maintaining nuclear weapons, to take two examples. Earlier in 2019, Russia and Iran were coordinating military efforts in Syria. Trump adores foreign policy chaos, as he snarls at European allies and looks like a compliant puppy when with Putin. South Koreans fear Trump's weakness with North Korea, an ally of both China and Russia. One may say this drone attack against Iranian military leadership is part of the same piece. For those in the anti-anti-Trumpist camp, who like to think impeaching Trump is merely so much cynical DNC political jousting, instead of Trump being precisely the type of president a Congress should remove, one should wonder at the type of mischief this president can get us into over the next year in light of his drone strikes earlier this week.
Personally, I have longed for the end of the American military Empire, but find myself in strange bedfellows positions with what the late Gore Vidal called the US National Security State because I do not want US citizens undermined or to merely leave the world stage to Chinese and Russian government dictators and oligarchs. The world governments should be cooperating with respect to climate change and raising living standards for remaining peasants and workers, to take two of many examples for global cooperation and true security. It is no more naive to think world leaders may cooperate to save the planet than to believe world leaders are only interested in domination. The world is a complicated place, for certain. But it is not so complicated that we should shrug our shoulders at Trump's latest foreign policy conduct. Trump's violation of most post-WWII diplomatic norms, in not consulting with Congress, European allies or the Iraqi government of an attack inside Iraq, while causally telling his elite guests at his private resort, acting in a manner that will certainly lead to further increased violence in the Middle East and possibly into Europe, while studiously avoiding global cooperation on matters involving climate change, should be more than enough to move Congress and the American people to remove this narcissist from the White House.
