Iran War Temporarily Terminated

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The United States of America was involved in combat operations (actual war) in Vietnam for eight years, from 1965 through 1973, without ever going through the formal and constitutionally-mandated process of Congress officially declaring war.  (In August of 1964 Congress did pass a joint resolution - the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - which permitted President Lyndon Johnson to use military force in Asia without a formal declaration of war.)   The result was an "unofficial" war that dragged on for years and resulted in millions of casualties and the deaths of over half-a-million American troops.

Vietnam was a helluva bloody mess, and Congress did not want to risk being led into another disaster by another vainglorious President.  In 1973 when the war ended by treaty in a stalemate that quickly morphed into a rout of American troops, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution to keep from being sucked into another Vietnam.   That resolution required the President to end unauthorized military activities within 60 days, or, in other words, if the President deems that a war needs to continue beyond 60 days, he must get approval from Congress for that to happen.

Today marks the 64th time that the sun has risen over American military involvement against the country of Iran, but the Trump administration has yet to approach Congress and request an extension of its right to assert warfare against a foreign nation.  What's up with that?

Donald Trump is the answer to that question.    He put on his grifter garb and began playing sleight-of-hand games with Congress.  Trump initiated a very ill-defined two-week "ceasefire" with Iran on April 8th, one which may or may not have involved our partner in the war effort, Israel, and one which is murky at best because blockades and hostilities continue.  But Trump, for purposes of dealing with Congress, maintains that the cease fire is a real thing (at least in his mind) and the war is at an end (at least for the time being).  It is temporarily terminated.

Gas prices remain high and are climbing, and our troops do not appear to be returning home, but Trump says the war has ended and the 60-day clock has been stopped.  He says it with a wink and a nod because it is a fiction designed solely to meet the 60-day congressional mandate for an authorization to continue.  (A Republican Congress would conceivably give him his war authorization, but this is an election year and almost two-thirds of Americans oppose the war with Iran, so politically authorizing that war would be a very dumb move.  The Republican Congress feels better protected politically by just accepting Trump's specious logic that the 60-day clock ended with a cease fire.  House and Senate members are also winking and nodding.)

And so, in short, the United States war on Iran goes on, but it is shrouded in semantics and political gobbledygook.   Bullets are still flying, vessels are still being boarded, and soldiers, civilians, and children are still dying, and bellicose politicians are still belching threats all night, every night, on social media.  A war by any other name is still a cruel and bloody nightmare.  

Our military is being controlled by show horses and incompetents, Congress is manned by individuals whose primary motivation seems to be getting re-elected, and the war is being fought by young people who don't have clue one as to its purpose.

It certainly feels like we are still at war, a very ill-conceived and poorly executed war, but a war nonetheless.

Donald, you need to wind your clock and get some sleep.