He sure did. The bad, and unsurprising news is, the Biden administration launched new attacks on “Iran-backed” militia, maintaining a tradition of the U.S. doing whatever the hell it pleases on the international scene whenever it damn well feels like it, which goes back at least as far as George H. W. Bush. The good, and surprising, news is, some Democrats in Congress are willing to say publicly that they didn’t like it and want the administration to come to Congress before it starts killing foreigners all willy-nilly. Rather embarrassingly for the administration (one hopes), the Iraqi government denounced the rocket attacks as a “blatant” violation of its sovereignty.
Politico’s Andrew Desiderio and Lara Seligman have a, well, surprisingly full take on this, New Middle East airstrikes inflame Democratic war powers debate. The article quotes Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Murphy as saying “The administration would be better off coming to Congress and asking for a debate on a declaration of war if they foresee a need to continue to go back and forth with … Iranian proxy groups.”
In addition, Virginia Democratic representative Abigail Spanberger said “We're pretty far away from authorizing or moving towards an authorization of use of military force specific to Iranian-backed militia[s]. There's a lot that happens throughout the world, and I think that there would be significant, significant debate … within Congress, before we would look at writing such an authorization.”
Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown and substacker Glenn Greenwald explain why murdering people is wrong.
Afterwords
The U.S. “intervened” in other countries throughout the Cold War, usually via the CIA, but after the Berlin Wall came down, Aigh Dubya figured “why not take off the mask”? Bush invaded Panama to capture CIA asset gone rogue/Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, killing anywhere between 500 and 1000 innocent Panamanian civilians in the process, along with hundreds of Panamanian soldiers as well, who were equally innocent. After that, regime change became a near-narcotic with American presidents, with Donald Trump having the honor of being the first American president in decades not to launch an invasion. How poorly that reflects on both of our “respectable” parties, that an amoral oaf who acknowledges no law other than his own appetite displays a greater sense of proportion than they! I discussed this disastrous phenomenon, which, after all, made Trump possible, here.
UPDATE
Even “America is the Indispensable Nation” dude Fred Kaplan can’t help wondering if maybe—just maybe—constantly attacking people in other nations can end up being, you know, counterproductive:
A Pentagon spokesman justified the most recent U.S. airstrikes as “necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation—but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message.” This may be true, but similar statements have followed similar strikes for years, even decades; yet counterattacks nonetheless follow (the “deterrent message” doesn’t get through), and so it’s possible that we are heightening the “risk of escalation,” not limiting it.
You know, Fred, I’ve been wondering the same thing!
Fred continues his musing on these matters, and comes up with some pretty interesting ideas:
[T]he very presence of U.S. troops abroad—and there are about 165,000 active-duty troops in more than 150 countries around the world—is a double-edged sword: It may well deter aggression against our allies or client-states; yet in countries where conflict is still raging (or even simmering), the troops may present tempting targets of opportunity, to raise the profile of a militia group, or to apply more pressure than the militias think the Americans can bear, or simply to stir chaos, since orderliness is against the militias’ interest.
In any case, the American president gets drawn in, even when that’s the last thing he wants. This is why these things continue to happen, even under presidents who are otherwise very different. (The sequence of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden covers as wide a spectrum as we’ve experienced across two decades.)
But, you know something, Fred? If getting “drawn in” were really the last thing our presidents want, well, they wouldn’t do it! I mean, it sounds pretty open and shut to me.
I’ve banged on poor Fred a lot over the years as a Blobist with a conscience, who admits (some of the time) that we have failed in the Middle East over and over again because we always seem to go in with a vast set of goals that are not only implausible but self-contradictory, which explains why we have so much difficulty in simply enunciating them, much less bringing them to fruition. But Fred also finds it difficult to admit that not knowing what we are doing is a strong argument for stopping what we are doing. If we keep stepping on our dick long enough, we’re sure to get it right!
