Are We Going to War?

by James Staudt

copyright 2017, all rights reserved

I hope not.  But, I fear that President Trump's speech at the UN brought back memories of the George W. Bush administration - especially the "Axis of Evil" speech where he told the world that "you are either with us or you are against us".  The stark "us versus them", "good versus evil" tone of the Trump speech is reminiscent of Bush and Cheney at their worst.  Also, President Trump is leading an administration that can't seem to get anything done domestically and is seeing key people from his presidential campaign, such as Paul Manafort, indicted.  A war tends to get the country to rally around a President, no matter how beleaguered he might otherwise be.  So, there are political reasons why President Trump, like President Bush before him, might be inclined to go to war.

Unfortunately, we cannot rely on Congress to prevent the war.  Although our Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 11) gives Congress the sole authority to declare war and the President, as Commander-In-Chief, the power to conduct the war, since World War II Congress has consistently voted to grant the authority to commit troops to military action overseas ("war" by any other name) to the President, rather than make the affirmative choice themselves as was intended by the writers of our Constitution.  This works out well for both Congress and the President.  When things go wrong the President gets to do what he wants and can share the blame with Congress who allowed him to do what he wants.  Congress gets to put the blame on the President by saying that they didn't actually vote for the war but voted to give the President the choice to go to war and the choice was his.  Essentially, each gets to pass the buck to the other.  How convenient.

Make no mistake, there is no happy ending with a war against North Korea or Iran.  Iran is three times the size of Iraq in terms of land and population, and we know how well the Iraq War has gone.  A war with North Korea, while not much of a threat to US citizens at home, puts millions of our friends (and US citizens) in South Korea and Japan at risk and also risks a war with China.  China has made it clear that they will not accept US troops in North Korea, and we saw how well crossing the 38th parallel went about 70 years ago when China entered the Korean War.  President Truman deeply regretted taking General MacArthur's advice on that matter.

Even targeted strikes against North Korea would be a mistake. Kim Jong Un would hardly stand by, or he would risk losing power.  North Korea can easily bombard Seoul with its artillery and would likely do so in retaliation for a strike.  The population of the Seoul metro area is over 25 million.  My son is currently in Seoul on a semester abroad, and I am understandably worried about this.  Even if he weren't in Seoul, I would be opposed to an attack on North Korea.

The only world leader that applauded President Trump's speech was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  Netanyahu encouraged the United States to invade Iraq.  He has encouraged a very militant posture with Iran, opposing the nuclear agreement.  In a war with Iran, Mr. Netanyahu's Likud government would be the main beneficiary.  As the United States and Europe have become more preoccupied with turmoil in the Middle East and elsewhere, there is less pressure on Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians.

I fear that we are getting ever closer to a serious war, perhaps even the use of nuclear weapons.