How many fell for that nonsense?
He’s so far gone that he isn’t even pretending that there’s an actual reason for going to war in the middle east. He’s doing it because he can and he loves to demonstrate that. No doubt he believes that he will once again come out on top because he always does so he needn’t bother to explain himself. He is omnipotent.
In a more than 100-minute State of the Union on Tuesday, just a few days ago, Trump didn’t bring up Iran until more than one hour and 20 minutes into the speech, and even then, he offered no explanation for why an attack was in America’s national interest.
Surreally, Trump said in June 2025, when the U.S. military first attacked Iran (also with no effort by Trump to explain his decision to Americans beforehand), it “obliterated” the country’s nuclear weapons program. If that were true, it would suggest that an attack on the same program nine months later makes little sense. Trump said, “They [Iran] want to start it all over again and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions,” but offered no evidence or, if it is true, why there is an urgency to attack now. Indeed, even U.S. officials acknowledge that Iran has not actively resumed its uranium enrichment program after last year’s joint U.S. and Israeli attack.
The only argument that Trump could muster for why Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose a threat to the United States is that Tehran has “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”
So the threat to America is a nuclear bomb that doesn’t exist, perched on an intercontinental ballistic missile that isn’t close to being built?
Yeah, they’re said to be at least a decade away from that possibility.
Well, he did give one rationale for war. They haven’t said some magic words. Except they have:
Perhaps the most bizarre part of the approximately three minutes that Trump spent talking about Iran was the president’s claim that Tehran wants to make a deal, “but we haven’t heard those secret words, ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon.’” Iranian officials have repeatedly said that they have no intention of building a nuclear weapon. After Trump’s speech, the country’s foreign minister said it again.
This is the new way. He uses the military the way he uses tariffs: to blackmail, threaten and punish anyone who doesn’t do his bidding exactly the way he wants them too, sometimes completely on a whim.
The age of the imperial presidency, which began after World War II and the advent of nuclear weapons, has led to a steady decline in national deliberation about the use of military force. But we’ve never had a situation like the one we have today with Iran. Trump isn’t even pretending to try to make the case for war. If anything, this is the imperial presidency on steroids — as Trump decides to go to war with zero input from Congress (no congressional hearings) and zero effort to rally public opinion.
He knows the GOP will back him to the hilt and is so sure of his invincibility that he simply doesn’t think he needs to. He know he will be triumphant. In the end, he always is.
He’s even already getting a head start on the monuments he believes will be built to celebrate his greatness. The imperial presidency has its first real emperor.
Will his total immunity from all accountability extend to his henchmen? If history is any guide, no:
