As the Pentagon prepares for war with Iran, the White House hasn’t yet decided what the purpose of such an attack would be, two major U.S. newspapers reported since Wednesday. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The U.S. is ready to take action against Iran, but President Trump hasn’t decided whether to order strikes or—if he does order them—whether the aim would be to halt Iran’s already-battered nuclear program, wipe out its missile force or try to topple the regime.”
“Rarely in modern times has the United States prepared to conduct a major act of war with so little explanation and so little public debate,” David Sanger of the New York Times reports. “The president has given no speeches preparing the American public for a strike on a country of about 90 million people, and sought no approval from Congress. He has not explained why he has chosen this moment to confront Iran instead of, for example, North Korea, which in the years after Mr. Trump’s failed negotiations in the first term has expanded its nuclear arsenal to 60 or more warheads, by U.S. intelligence estimates, and is working to demonstrate they can reach the United States.”
Trump’s military planners have given him several paths for conflict, including “kill[ing] scores of Iranian political and military leaders, with the goal of overthrowing the government…as well as an air attack that would be limited to striking targets including nuclear and ballistic-missile facilities,” the Journal reports. “Both would involve a potentially weekslong operation.”
Trump says he wants to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. “They can’t have a nuclear weapon and they’ve been told that very strongly,” he said Thursday. But in this regard, “he is in something of a diplomatic box,” Sanger writes. “He faces pressure to show that any new agreement he reached goes well beyond the 2015 deal” reached by President Obama. “But if he signs an agreement that does not address the [Iranian regime’s] missiles, he will appear to have sold out Israel.” And if the deal he agrees to doesn’t stop the regime from shooting protesters, “he will have abandoned a generation of Iranians who see the United States as their last chance to open the country up.” And on top of all this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants Trump to help kill all of Iran’s current leaders once and for all, at least in part to cement Bibi and Trump’s legacy throughout the region.
One important question: Is a U.S. attack on Iran legal? At this point, it certainly doesn’t seem so. For example, Iran poses no imminent threat to the U.S., and article 1(8) of the Constitution says only Congress has the power to “declare war.” But just as its decision to circumvent Congress and recast the Defense Department as the “War Department,” the Trump White House seems content to view war as more of a vibe than a legitimate endeavor sanctioned by American law and the courts. That’s partly why U.S. allies in Europe are especially concerned these days, and why its neighbor to the north appears to be the most concerned of all.
The U.S. won’t have the use of British airbases for an attack on Iran, the Times reported Thursday. “In a rift with Washington, the prime minister is understood to have told Trump that the UK would not allow the use of British facilities at Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, which is home to America’s fleet of heavy bombers in Europe.”
Coupled with unpopular polling numbers, the White House’s war vibes are leading some academics to use the phrase “gambling for resurrection”: risky actions undertaken to reverse a leader’s declining political fortunes. Diversionary wars are among the most high-profile examples of this concept in political science.
Trump’s TV ally and Fox pundit Sean Hannity is helping to rattle sabers. “The mullahs should be very worried,” Hannity said Wednesday night on his show. “And I do have a little advice for the radical leaders in Iran. You may want to get on that plane to Russia sooner than you think. Sooner than later. Now would be a good time.”
Trump “is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize,” Barak Ravid of Axios reported Wednesday, adding that “sources noted it would likely be a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that’s much broader in scope—and more existential for the regime—than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June.”
“With the attention of Congress and the public otherwise occupied, there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential U.S. military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade,” Ravid warns. And “Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency.”
“The B-2 bombers are incredible. I never understood the B-2 bomber. I’d watch. It’s a wing, and I’ve never quite understood that,” Trump said Thursday in a meandering speech at the first meeting of his Board of Peace. “I’d look at it, I’d say it was beautiful, but what does it do? It carries very big bombs. And, uh, it went into Iran and it totally decimated the nuclear—nuclear potential. And when it did, when it decimated that, uh, all of a sudden, we had peace in the Middle East.” As for what’s next, “you’re going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days,” he said.
Many traditional U.S. allies have rejected his invitation to join the Board of Peace, including Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, the UK, Ukraine, and the Vatican. So far, the board’s membership consists “of largely oppressive and authoritarian world leaders,” the Guardian reported Thursday.
Nations that have joined include Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kosovo, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. “So far none appear to have tossed in the $1 billion that would give them permanent status,” historian Heather Cox Richardson noted Thursday.
The only one who has announced any money for the organization is Trump himself, who declared Thursday the U.S. will put $10 billion into the group. However, Richardson adds, “since Congress is the only body that can legally appropriate money in our system, it’s unclear how he intends to do this.”
Coverage continues below…
Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter focused on developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so we’d like to take a moment to thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1944, the U.S. and British militaries launched a weeklong campaign of bombing Nazi aircraft factories in central and southern Germany.
New: The Supreme Court on Friday struck down Trump’s global tariffs, saying the president exceeded his authority by illegally circumventing Congress to carry out his wide-ranging economic campaign that affected many of America’s closest allies. Reuters described it as Trump’s “key economic and foreign policy tool” and “one that has alienated trading partners, affected financial markets and caused global economic uncertainty.”
The 6-3 decision will “force the government to unwind trade deals with other countries and potentially pay hefty refunds to importers,” the New York Times reports.
Additional reading: “US growth falls sharply to 1.4% rate in fourth quarter,” the Financial Times reported Friday, noting that figure is “far below Wall Street expectations, as the record federal shutdown hit government spending.”
Amid preparations for war, Trump just ordered the U.S. government to release information on alleged aliens and UFOs, the president announced on social media Thursday. “Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters,” he said in an evening post.
Panning out: “Trump’s push to focus on aliens comes at the beginning of a hectic midterm election year, with a heavy public focus on information disclosed in files related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein—many of which mention Trump by name—as well as the issue of affordability, which has weighed on his popularity ratings,” Bloomberg reports.
Trump’s face is now on the Department of Justice building after workers unveiled a large vertical banner Thursday in a gesture the Associated Press described as “a striking symbol of the erosion of the department’s tradition of independence from White House control.”
“Similar banners were installed at other federal buildings last year, including the Agriculture Department and Labor Department,” adding to “a string of efforts by the administration to emblazon the president’s name and face on everything from coins to national park passes,” the New York Times reports.
“Such displays are more often a feature of countries run by dictators, not democratically elected leaders,” the Times notes. AP reminds readers as well that “The Trump administration has opened investigations into a number of the president’s perceived enemies, amplifying concerns that the agency is being used to exact revenge on his political foes.”
Trump also said Thursday that he wants to “test the law” and give himself the Congressional Medal of Honor for a visit to the Middle East in 2018. “I decided to go to Iraq and I flew to Iraq. I was extremely brave, in fact, so brave I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor,” the president told a crowd Thursday at a rally in Georgia. “And I said, no, it’s a little stretch if I gave myself one of them. But it’s one of those things. Someday I’m going to try. I’m going to test the law.” He added, “Maybe I’ll win in court after everyone sues me.”
And lastly this week, the Army’s looking for the best drone pilots. You’ve probably heard of Best Ranger or Best Sapper: Army competitions that test the skills of teams of infantrymen and combat engineers. This year, the service added Best Drone Warfighter, Defense One’s Meghann Myers reported Thursday.
The inaugural battle kicked off Tuesday at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, bringing teams from across the active, Reserve, and National Guard components of the Army to test their skills and possibly win a slot on the service’s drone competition team. The three-day meet included two different lanes, plus a separate innovation competition where soldiers could submit white papers and custom drone builds, or demonstrate their piloting skills.
Why now? The Army is moving away from its previous drone operator model, which trained soldiers in its aviation branch to operate specific platforms. Instead, it’s likely that soldiers with additional training in operating UAS will be integrated into infantry, armor and other frontline units, where new doctrine will have them working alongside machine gunners, Abrams tanks, and howitzers. Continue reading, here.
