War

And just like that, we are at war.

Without justification. Without the process our Constitution demands. Without any sense of what comes next. We are chained to the whims of impetuous fools guided by conflicted motives. These are the actions not of a president, but of a king seeking glory and the trappings of empire, indulging in the self-satisfied folly of armed conflict.

To a man who only knows instinct and hype, the pictures of explosions and the might of an American armada feel like strength. It is another testament to the weakness of his character and leadership. He has thrust us into a dangerous unknown that is far beyond his ability to control after the opening salvo.

To call this a war of choice is an insult to any definition of a normal deliberative process. It is a war of hubris. A war of distraction. A war of infantile spite.

To be sure, the Iranian regime is murderous, despotic, and a destabilizing force in the world. It deserves to be toppled. But even if we were to grant the most noble rationale for this rash action — that this is about liberating the Iranian people (and we should of course not grant this reasoning) — our recent history alone gives ample evidence that shock and awe is often followed by quagmire and ruin.

Those who know war, who have seen it up close, understand that it is an untamable beast. Sometimes it is necessary and just, as in the defense of freedom against the Nazis. But even those who led the Allies in that conflict understood the costs.

Winston Churchill is famous for his commanding wartime oratory, urging his countrymen on as perhaps the final bulwark against fascist domination. But a decade earlier, he had published a biography of his first three decades titled My Early Life. He had seen a great deal of war and written books on the subject. And in that memoir is a passage that perhaps best captures my sense of foreboding today:

Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.