There was a time not long ago when the old saying about political differences ending at the water’s edge represented the prevailing truth. Rallying around the flag in the fight against evil summoned a common patriotic spirit. The country was united in the simple belief that if we were going to war, no matter how controversial, it was imperative that we win. Now, however, the American left seems more willing to support Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, than the US president. Sadly, with Trump derangement now the only driving force in one of the nation’s two major political parties, such patriotism and unity are merely a distant memory.
Ignoring Evil in Iran
As they condemn the president on multiple fronts for Operation Epic Fury in Iran, leftists have hardly acknowledged the horrors of the Islamist regime that he is seeking to relegate to the ash heap of history. They gloss over the central, indisputable fact that it has been a menace to the entire Middle East for 47 years. It has long represented the most imposing, ongoing threat not just to the US and Europe, but to the entire civilized world. The regime murdered tens of thousands of its own people in cold blood. You might have thought Trump’s enemies would at least pay lip service to the evil emanating from the Islamist state, but instead they have responded not just by attacking the president, but by suggesting, or stating outright, that America will lose the war.
Before you wonder whether that is hyperbole, consider the statement made by the man who is, at least by title, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the land: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). He was either gaslighting the public or revealing his own ignorance by declaring to CNN that, all evidence aside, he doesn’t “even understand the justification for what is taking place.” And then he resorted to pure political theatre by presenting a dystopian view of the conflict, with the added bonus of playing politics with healthcare: “We’re seeing the beginning of an all-out war in the Middle East at the same period of time where Donald Trump and his administration, and Republicans, have cut more than a trillion dollars from Medicaid.” And for the coup de grace, Jeffries proclaimed that the war is “not going to end well.” One wonders how that defeatist statement was received by our military personnel serving in harm’s way.
Then there was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY): “Donald Trump has just launched America into a full-scale conflict against one of our most fervent adversaries … Without a plan, without an endgame and without authorization from Congress — or even a debate in full view of the American people.” Note his contemptible use of the phrase “fervent adversaries” to depict a regime that might best be described as evil enemies. God forbid he admit the rulers of Iran are bad people. Jeffries and Schumer are not fringe political figures, but Democratic Party leaders, to the extent that there are any these days.
An Imminent Threat?
As demonstrated by the statements of Jeffries and Schumer, leftists have taken a shotgun approach to the war, claiming it is illegal and/or unconstitutional and/or unwarranted because Iran presented no imminent threat. Of course, that depends on how you define the word imminent. Does it mean within the next few days, weeks, or months? Should we simply hope not to find out? And if it’s a matter of years, should we kick this can down the road again like the seven presidents who preceded Trump, all of whom knew the removal of the Iranian regime was necessary but failed to act?
There was also an appeal to pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli progressives by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who declared that Iran was not a threat to the US. Instead, “it was a threat to Israel,” he declared, implying that Trump was dragged into the war by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Virginia’s other Democrat senator, Tim Kaine, writing for the Wall Street Journal, simply downplayed the Iranian threat. “As a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, . . . I can state plainly that there was no imminent threat from Iran to America sufficient to warrant committing our sons and daughters to another war in the Middle East—especially without the congressional debate and vote that the Constitution requires,” he wrote.
Sen. Kaine and his fellow purveyors of the argument that Trump’s action was out of bounds know perfectly well that Congress has not declared war since 1942, in the midst of World War II. Every conflict since, from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq, has been waged without formal congressional consent. Yet Trump’s antagonists are acting as if he were the first president to launch an attack without subjecting it to debate among 535 members of Congress.
By exploiting a rare and golden opportunity presented by a daytime meeting of the Iranian high command, Trump actually shortened the war considerably, eliminating the supreme leader and several members of the Iranian high command in one fell swoop. Few would argue with the near certainty that if that battle plan had been subject to congressional debate, it would have been leaked, tanking the entire operation. Democrats’ attempt in recent days to pass the proposed War Powers Act, transparently aimed at shutting down this president’s options, failed in the Senate and the House.
Trump himself said it best about condemnation from the left over his monumental decision: “If I didn’t do this, guys like Schumer who — losers, the Democrats, losers — would say, ‘Well, you should have done this, … In other words, if I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this.”
