Trump courting fiasco in escalating conflict: analysis

During the February 28/March 1 weekend, at least seven countries were involved in an escalating conflict in the Middle East: the United States, Iran, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Tehran, and Iran responded by attacking U.S. military bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE. Explosions were also reported in Jordan and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered military strikes on Tehran, killing Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. And several other countries, over the weekend, were drawn into the conflict.

Conservative New York Times columnist David French, in his March 1 column, argues that Trump is courting a global disaster by starting a war unilaterally and failing to get Congress' input.

"Eight minutes. That's the length of President Trump's social media video announcing his war with Iran," French explains. "He didn't go to Congress. He didn't obtain a UN Security Council resolution. Instead, he did perhaps the most monarchical thing he's done in a monarchical second term: He simply ordered America into war."

The Never Trump conservative continues, "I take a back seat to no one in my loathing of the Iranian regime. I am not mourning the death of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday, (February 28)…. But my personal feelings don't override the Constitution, and neither do anyone else's…. Here's the bottom line: Trump should have gotten congressional approval for striking Iran, or he should not have struck at all. And because he did not obtain congressional approval, he's diminishing America's chances for ultimate success and increasing the chances that we make the same mistakes we — and other powerful nations — have made before."

French emphasizes that there are "very good reasons" why the U.S. has a "constitutional structure on matters of war and peace."

"When it came to military affairs," French writes, "the Constitution separated the power to declare war from the power to command the military. The short way of describing the structure is that America should go to war only at Congress' direction, but when it does, its armies are commanded by the president. Perhaps the most important aspect of this constitutional structure is that it creates a presumption of peace."

French continues, "Our nation cannot go to war until its leaders persuade a majority of Congress that war is in our national interest…. The Iranian regime deserves to fall, but I’m concerned that we’re creating the conditions for more massacres of more civilians, without offering the protesters any reasonable prospect of success…. No matter what he thinks, Trump is not a king. But by taking America to war all on his own, he is acting like one."