On June 21, US president Donald Trump ordered airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. You may have heard. As I write this, we’re in the “boasting about how splendid it all is” phase of Trump’s cyclical foreign policy approach.

Phase One: Pretend to be “anti-war” and feverishly “negotiating” to avoid escalation of this or that long-term conflict.

Phase Two:  Escalate.

Phase Three: Brag about what a genius he is.

Phase Four: Backtrack and maybe whine a little when it blows up in his face — or, rather, in the faces of the troops he puts in harm’s way.

It remains to be seen whether we’ll get the usual Phase Four (a la the ignominious but long overdue US surrender in Afghanistan after his “surge,” the Iranian strikes on US bases in Iraq after his operation to murder Iranian general  Qasem Soleimani, etc.), or whether he’ll really screw the pooch and set the Middle East on fire this time when the Iranians retaliate.

In the meantime, let’s talk about the US Constitution.

This morning, I received an email from Defending Rights and Dissent, a pro-Constitution organization with a history stretching back to the era of McCarthyism.  Subject line: “Trump shreds the Constitution. Bombs Iran. TAKE ACTION.”

DRAD wants you to write “your” US Representative and US Senators, urging them to support a “War Powers Resolution” requiring Trump to stand down, on the clear and irrefutable constitutional claim that only Congress has the authority to declare war and that Trump’s actions are therefore illegal.

Okay, yeah, I did that.

But realistically, Congress isn’t any more likely to reassert its power over US war-making this time around than it did with Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and numerous other belligerent actions/involvements.

We’ve been living in a “post-constitutional” era, featuring an “imperial” presidency, for at least 80 years, with Congress exercising about as much power as the Roman Senate under the Caesars.

How do we know that?  The latest unimpeachable evidence for the claim is that Trump wasn’t impeached on the evening of June 21 and convicted and removed from office on the morning of June 22. The prosecution rests, and the defense has no case.

As Lysander Spooner noted in 1870, “whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”

Whether the Constitution was a good idea and whether it ever “worked” are interesting questions, but for all practical purposes, it ceased to exist as anything other than low-quality toilet paper decades ago, if not longer.

Self-help gurus agree: The first step toward solving your problem is admitting you have one.

Until we face the cold, hard fact that the “America” we learned about in high school civics classes is a myth — created by, and maintained for the benefit of, an imperial political class at humankind’s expense — we won’t be able to move on to anything better.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

The “Baker” explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on 25 July 1946. [Source: Wikipedia]

As I write this, US president Donald Trump seems deep in his usual dither. Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal, “told senior aides late Tuesday [June 17] that he approved of attack plans for Iran, but was holding off to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program.”

So, OK, we’re used to that: Tariffs! Wait, no tariffs! Wait, reduced tariffs! Mass deportations! Wait, not farm workers, maids, and waiters! Wait, them too!

War on Iran, though, isn’t so much a matter of changing his mind as whether he’s out of his mind. It’s an evil and risky proposition with no moral or practical up side, and a trigger far more difficult to un-pull than tariffs or deportations. That he’s even considering it makes a strong case for his removal from office via the 25th Amendment.

If there’s any lesson to learn from two decades of US and Israeli pressure on Iran to shut down a non-existent “nuclear weapons program,” starting with economic sanctions and leading inevitably to Israeli airstrikes and open war on the apt date of Friday the 13th, it’s that an Iran with nuclear weapons just might be the best option if the goal is to calm down the Middle East.

Iraq’s Saddam Hussein gave up his nuclear ambitions, after which the US invaded and occupied his country and killed him.

Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear ambitions, after which NATO invaded and occupied his country and killed him.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un saw their nuclear ambitions through to  testing and fielding a nuclear arsenal, after which those who might have otherwise supported invading and occupying North Korea and killing its ruler cooled their jets. Not really “peace,” but clearly a better option than open war.

On the subject of nuclear weapons, the Iranian regime has proven itself not just compliant, but obsequiously so, through decades of broken promises and renewed lies about its ambitions, only throwing up its hands and saying “fine, we’ll enrich uranium to weapons grade purity” after multiple broken promises by, among others, Donald Trump, and only to get its opponents to start holding up THEIR end of the 2015 “Iran nuclear deal.”

The Iranian regime, a theocracy, even observes a religious proscription on building nukes per a fatwa from its “Supreme Leader.”

In return, the Iranian regime got a narrow range of responses, from economic isolation to open war.

Fatwas are merely legal rulings on points of Islamic law. Their authors might reverse themselves. Ali Khamenei should.

If the Pakistani regime announced a gift of three nuclear-armed Shaheen III missiles to the Iranian regime, with one put immediately under Iranian operational control until the others can be moved to and sited in Iran,  the war would likely come to a screeching halt.

Mutual Assured Destruction has its down sides, but at this point it seems like the best option for cooling down US/Israeli war fever and seeking a re-set based on honest dealing instead of threats.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

It’s always dangerous to accept “participation” statistics about public events, so I’ll take equal grains of salt with the White House’s estimate of 250,000 attendees at Donald Trump’s June 14 birthday parade in Washington, DC, and the American Civil Liberties Union’s estimate of more than five million participants in more than 2,100 “No Kings” rallies around the US on the same day.

I attended the “No Kings” event in Gainesville, Florida, with a friend. Media estimates for participants in that rally range from 1,500 to 3,000. My impression is that real attendance came closer to, and probably exceeded, the higher figure.

I didn’t go to the rally with any particular issue on my mind. I didn’t make a sign to wave, or take advantage of any of the offerings of signs hitting on various subjects.

While it’s fair to say that I’m “anti-Trump” both in general and on any number of specifics, my goal (and, I think, my friend’s) wasn’t so much to express that sentiment as to “take the temperature.” What issues would enjoy the loudest support/opposition? Would MAGA counter-protesters show up? Would the protesters, the counter-protesters, or the police engage in violence?

Thankfully, I saw no violence. I saw no counter-protesters. Oddly, at a gathering of thousands with tense political implications, I saw not a single uniformed police officer. I’m not saying they weren’t there. But I walked around quite a bit and IF they were there they weren’t prominent.

The simplest “temperature” measure, of course, was opposition to the presidency of Donald Trump.  Nobody (or at least nobody I encountered) seemed to disagree with that.

Why? Well, that’s where the crowd got all over the place.

I saw signs opposing US support for Israel’s war in Gaza (but, oddly, no signs referencing Iran or the Russia-Ukraine war);  signs opposing cuts to federal funding of everything from Medicaid to university research; signs opposing Elon Musk; signs supporting LGBTQ people and causes; signs opposing Trump’s war on immigrants; signs supporting free speech, civil liberties, and due process; and just general anti-Trump signage.

The initial talk by the main “organizer” stressed that the 50501 movement (which “coordinated” the “No Kings” events) is “decentralized” and “non-partisan.” Perhaps the former, but far from the latter. Various Democratic Party organizations, and “progressive” organizations at least nominally affiliated with the party, ran booths. Groups of people wearing similar t-shirts suggested those organizations had specifically turned out their members for the event.

Let me be blunt: Whether the organizers intended it or not, the nationwide simultaneous rallies became, in effect, the Democratic Party’s first major campaign event for the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election. Those of who oppose Trump but aren’t Democrats came along for the ride. Our support was co-opted whether we liked it or not.

So: I had fun, but found the pervasive “no REPUBLICAN kings” vibe disappointingly narrow.

Until we reject the whole idea of letting ourselves be ruled by politicians, the senile party hacks who lord it over us are “kings” whether we call them that or not.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY