In 1973 the US congress passed the War Powers Resolution Act. It's passage came from congressional frustration over the way that the President Richard Nixon administration was handling the war in Viet Nam and Cambodia. Overriding Nixon's veto, congress meant to regain control over the military and the right to declare war. Among the resolutions new rules was that military forces must be withdrawn within 60 days of a presidential attack unless congress authorizes a longer period or has declared war. Donald Trump's current war with Iran has now passed that 60 day mark with no attempt from the president to get congressional authorization. A few days ago, Defense Department Chief Pete Hegseth, while testifying about the war in front of the the Senate Armed Services Committee, claimed that “We are in a cease-fire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops, in a cease-fire.” There is, of course, no pauses allowed for a cease fire in the War Powers Resolution Act, but, as always, the Trump administration continues to believe that there are effectively no limits on the president's power. And, as they have done so many times since Trump began his second term, most congressional Republicans seem perfectly happy to let Trump have his way, laws be damned.
The war has now reached an odd moment in which there is a cease fire of sorts as both sides with both claiming some kind of upper hand. Trump has even boasted about an outright victory. But while he can boast all he wants, the Straits of Hormuz are still not open to all shipping, and Iran appears to unwilling to release its grip on the straits as long as the US demands that they give up all their enriched uranium, which could eventually be used for nuclear weapons. Iran is even considering charging a toll for safe passage through the straits, something that could seriously upend global shipping because, as most of the world is now painfully aware of, twenty percent of the world's oil supply travels through the straits.
This current impasse becomes even more frustrating when you consider how we all got here: when then President Barack Obama signed a nuclear deal with Iran back in 2015, it was the result of two years of negotiations, and Iran held up its end of the deal by not pursuing nuclear weapons, that is, until Donald Trump in his first term, threw out the deal in 2018. Iran inevitably saw this as an opportunity to restart their weapons program, which they did, which eventually lead to Trump bombing them last June and then starting an all out war two months ago. So if Trump, who operated on the principle that everything Obama did was bad, hadn't thrown out the deal in the first place, we wouldn't be in this mess.
And this war is a mess. Trump, who ran in 2024 on a platform of avoiding "stupid" foreign wars and lowering prices, made both of those promises meaningless when he started this war last February 28th. Not only have gas prices gone up, but food prices will also rise as fertilizer, another product that passes through the Straits of Hormuz, has also gotten more expensive for our nation's farmers. And unlike previous wars, this war has never been popular, with clear majorities of Americans opposing it and Trump's overall approval rating plummeting to the mid thirties in every poll.
One of the real tragedies of this war was the accidental American bombing of an Iranian elementary school, which resulted in the death of 175 children. A point could be made that the entire rational for the war was lost the moment that bomb hit that building, not only because of the terrible loss of innocent life, but also because every family and friend of one of those children now has a reason to hate America. And images of that bombed out school have been seen all over the Middle East, spreading anger and resentment towards our country.
So how will this all end? The tricky thing here is that the negotiations to end the war are taking place while the stand off is still going on, and the question is, how far can both sides go? Iran shutting down the straits is hurting America's economy, but the US of course still has the military ability to strike against Iran powerfully. It's a Mexican standoff with no easy answer, but it seem inevitably that the two sides will come to some kind of arrangement involving Iran's nuclear ambitions that will look a lot like the same plan that Trump so foolishly tossed out in 2018. But Trump will lie, say that his agreement is better than Obama's, and claim victory while saying it was the greatest victory in the history of the American military. Because in his mind everything he does is perfect, no matter how far from the truth that is.
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