Trump’s war of choice in Iran

Early Saturday morning, wearing a white baseball cap, President Trump informed the American people, “A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.”

That’s only part of the story. Trump did not tell the people that this war was unnecessary, was illegally begun without congressional authorization or even consultation and had been undertaken absent any direct threat to the U.S.

Although Trump has yet to give the public a full accounting of the rationale behind his war, the few arguments he has tossed out don’t hold up.

We had to bomb Iran now, Trump has insisted, to eliminate “imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” That is not true. Iran did not pose any direct threat to the United States. Nor does Iran possess, as Trump claims, long-range missiles that “could soon reach the American homeland.” At best, according to an unclassified 2025 report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, Iran could develop a “militarily-viable” intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the east coast of the United States by 2035.

The phrase “imminent threat” also rings hollow when the U.S. bombed Iran as recently as June 2025. At the time, Trump declared “Operation Midnight Hammer” a total success in obliterating Iran’s nuclear capacity. If we were really so successful then, why the need to bomb Iran again eight months later? He was either lying then, or he’s lying now.

Speaking of “imminent threat,” what........

© The Hill