Iran: Is It War or Isn’t It War?

Is it a war or isn’t it? Centuries ago, the Foundering Fathers specified that only Congress should be able to declare war. That declaration seems to have had no effect on the ability of Presidents to actually launch war, however, they just need to call it something else.

To that end, our leaders have called it everything from:

• Police Action
• Military Action
• Use of Force
• Armed Conflict
• Hostilities
• Targeted Strikes
• Peacekeeping

In fact, the U.S. Congress has only formally declared war a total of 11 times across a five distinct wars in our entire history, every other “conflict” has been disguised as something else:

• The War of 1812
• The Mexican American War
• The Spanish American War
• World War I
• World War II

Mental Gymnastics

These mental/political feats continue to this day. In Iran, we have:

• targeted and killed civilian leadership in Iran (which may or may not constitute a war crime, and which may or may not violate the military’s own laws on war)
• targeted and killed military leadership in Iran
• targeted and destroyed army, naval and airforce facilities in Iran
• targeted and destroyed other target that were alleged to be linked to Iran’s military/industrial complex
• and threatened to continue doing so until Iran offers a full and complete unconditional surrender.

If that’s not war, I don’t know what is.