In my post on the beginning of the war with Iran, I wrote: ” I have grave concerns about whether this President has the moral authority to take the country to war.” That concern has grown and grown over the last month. And it’s not just a concern about moral authority. It’s a concern about strategic understanding and the ability to make rational decisions.

Today the American president said: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”¹ Maybe this is his way of trying to pressure Iran into reopening the Straits of Hormuz, a closure that the Trump administration was obviously unprepared to meet when the war started. Who knows what he is thinking. No doubt he wasn’t really thinking. The point is, war is a deadly serious business and should be led by serious people. As a country, we have to express revulsion at comments like this from our head of state and the commander-in-chief of our armed forces. We cannot have carnival barkers and charlatans at the helm. “War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin.” It is not a TV show.

1. Compare Pres. Truman’s speech after the bombing of Hiroshima. “We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war. It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.” And recall that that much more rational and measured statement didn’t work: the United States ended up bombing Nagasaki before the Japanese finally surrendered. ↩︎