Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Remember the “head of a pin” metaphor?

Well, it came to mind again yesterday and today as I tried to learn more about the war in Iran – or question whether I knew enough even to be able to learn more.

Because what I know about Iran, including its history, would fit on the head of a pin.

So, instead of postulating based on my ignorance, I turned to reputable media analysts to read what they wrote as the war continues, a war started by President Donald Trump without any endorsement from Congress, nor any remarks to the American people about the rationale for war, a war in which Americans have already died and more will.

There, I indicated one of my biases.  If there is a rationale for war – and there might be – then Trump ought to explain it to Congress and to the American people before going headlong into it.

As for reputable views, I turned:

• To Bret Stephens, an influential American conservative journalist, op-ed columnist for The New York Times since 2017, and winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.  Known for his foreign policy expertise, he previously served as a Wall Street Journal editor and columnist, and Editor-in-Chief of The Jerusalem Post.
• To Tom Nichols, a prominent American academic, author, and staff writer at The Atlantic known for his expertise in international affairs, Russia, and national security.  A former professor at the U.S. Naval War College, he is best known for the 2017 book The Death of Expertise, which critiques the decline of trust in expert knowledge.

So, in what follows, Stephens taken the pro-view – the benefits of war in Iran, and Nichols take the con-view – there is no way war makes sense without Congressional and public approval.

Without further introduction, I reprint the two columns in full, with the goal that all of us, me included, would wrestle with the perspectives as war broadens in the Middle East.  [I apologize for the length of this blog, but the subject deserves full exposure.]

First, the pro side from Stephens:

TRUMP AND NETANYAHU ARE DOING THE FREE WORLD A FAVOR

President Trump is being criticized from many quarters for his decision to join Israel in a war to topple the Iranian regime, which on Saturday yielded the killing of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The reasons vary.

It’s “a betrayal of the American people,” says Elizabeth Warren, who warns that the intervention risks dragging “yet another generation into a forever war.” It’s a betrayal of MAGA principles, says Marjorie Taylor Greene, who denounced Trump for putting “America last.” It’s unconstitutional, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, because it’s being conducted without authorization from Congress. It’s unnecessary, according to the writer Andrew Sullivan, who (quoting me, albeit misleadingly) thinks that Iran isn’t much of a threat and the war is being waged for Israel’s sake.

And so on. But one country where the United States and Israel are garnering broad support is the same country that’s being bombed.

“Everyone is joyful; it is one of the best days of probably 95 percent of Iranians’ lives,” one Iranian resident of the city of Karaj told The Wall Street Journal about Khamenei’s death. “We bolted outside and shouted from the top of our lungs and laughed and danced with our neighbors,” a woman in Tehran named Sara told The Times. A doctor who lost his son when the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane in 2020 wrote on social media, “We will endure the winter, spring is near.” In the city of Shiraz, videos showed people “joined together in a cheer that is typically reserved for weddings, symbolizing pure joy.”

It is also true that scores of civilians have been killed, and there was public mourning for Khamenei. But those mourners didn’t have to emerge under the threat of the regime’s guns.

There was a time when American hearts could be moved by moments like these — when free nations, having endured years of provocations and attacks from tyrants, band together to administer justice and supply hope. We’re a different country now, less naïve but considerably more pessimistic and cynical, and thus likelier to ask: What’s in it for us?

Let me try to answer that question.

First, it’s a mistake to say that Trump got America into war on Saturday. What he did was respond to a war that Iran has been waging against the United States since 1979.

It waged war when it seized our embassy in 1979, murdered (via proxy) hundreds of our service members in Beirut in 1983 and supplied the I.E.D.s, or roadside bombs, that killed or maimed over 1,000 of our troops during the war in Iraq. It waged war when it sought to assassinate former senior U.S. officials, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and, according to a 2024 report in Politico, Trump himself. One reason Iran behaved as it did is because it drew the lesson that it would pay no great price. No more.

Second, Tehran had an opportunity to change course last June, after its 12-day pummeling by Israel and an overnight strike by the United States. Instead, it set out to begin reconstituting its nuclear capabilities while rapidly rebuilding the missile force that is now terrorizing civilians in Tel Aviv, Dubai, Manama and Riyadh, and targeting U.S. military assets in the region.

Would the United States, the Arab world or Israel have been safer if we had waited a year or two for Iran to build several thousand more missiles? Or after Russia had supplied the regime with thousands of advanced shoulder-fired air defense missiles, as The Financial Times reported last week that it had agreed to do?

Third, Iran does not exist in a geopolitical vacuum: With Moscow and Beijing, it is a core member of the axis of autocracies that threaten the democratic world broadly.

The same liberals who fault Trump for not vigorously opposing Vladimir Putin should at least consider that it’s Tehran that has given Russia the drones and drone technology that have destroyed so much of Ukraine. And the same conservatives who fault Trump for diverting military resources away from the Pacific for the war in Iran should also note that Iran covertly supplies China with much of its oil as part of a promised 25-year, $400 billion strategic partnership. If Tehran falls out of the axis, our remaining adversaries can only be weaker.

Fourth, it is impossible to imagine anything like Mideast peace without the end of this regime.

It isn’t simply that Iran has been the principal backer of the so-called axis of resistance that includes every terrorist group that sought to wipe Israel off the map. It’s also that no Israeli government will ever agree to a Palestinian state that could fall into Iran’s orbit. Paradoxically, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face a much tougher time fending off international pressure for Palestinian statehood if the Tehran regime falls and Saudi Arabia offers peace with Israel.

Fifth, even if the United States and Israel don’t force regime change in Iran, they can achieve strategically significant goals.

The United States is stronger when anti-American dictators have solid reasons to fear our wrath: It restores deterrence and, in doing so, makes diplomacy more effective. Israel and the Arab world are safer when Iran is weaker: Notice that, at least so far, Hezbollah, fearing for its position in Lebanon, has not joined the war against Israel. Finally, even if the regime doesn’t fall, it will be under heavy internal pressure to modify its behavior as a pragmatic concession to reality, much as Venezuela has under Delcy Rodríguez, its (hopefully) interim president.

That may not be the optimal outcome. But it’s considerably better than what came before.

Finally, the United States and Israel have taken considerable military and political risks to do the right thing. And that’s no small thing.

They have rid the world of an odious tyrant, and of several layers of his equally odious deputies. It’s odd that the same people who fault Trump for divorcing U.S. foreign policy from its democratic values now fault him for going to war for the sake of advancing democratic values. Still, millions of ordinary people around the world — not just in Tel Aviv or Tehran or Tehrangeles but also, perhaps, in Taipei and Tallinn — will notice that the United States, for its many warts, still stands for freedom.

My column has never been shy about denouncing either Trump or Netanyahu. It won’t be shy to criticize them in the future. But on Saturday this much-maligned duo did the free world a courageous and historic favor. It will be remembered long after the petulant criticism dies down.

Now, for the con-side from Nichols:

Donald Trump has taken America into war with a country whose population is approximately the size of Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s combined. He has done this without making a case to the American people, and without approval of any kind from their elected representatives. His launching of hostilities (with the embarrassingly bro-themed name “Operation Epic Fury”) is the culmination of decades of expanding presidential powers over national-security issues, and Trump has now taken that expansion to its extreme conclusion, launching wars and using military power as he sees fit. Many of his critics are focused on the claim that the war is illegal under both U.S. and international law—and they are probably right about that. But Trump has already floored the accelerator and driven off the cliff. What are the options for Congress and the American people—the majority of whom do not support this conflict—to regain some control over a president conducting a war as if he were a medieval prince? Unfortunately, the few legal options available are laden with their own risks. Congress could decide to cut off funding for the war, which at this point could be as reckless an act as starting one. Men and women overseas did not choose to go, and they should at least be allowed to conduct their operations without worrying that Congress will simply turn off all funding. It could pass a resolution demanding an immediate end to hostilities—also a risky move. Congress does have a less dramatic option: It could invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a law often discussed but rarely understood by the public. I have my own skepticism about using this law: In fact, I helped to avert its use in 1990 when I was working in the Senate during the first Gulf War. I’ll come back to that. Meanwhile, here’s where the law came from and what it actually says. The War Powers Resolution was adopted in 1973 during the waning days of the Vietnam War. The resolution imposes these limits on the power of presidents to wage war: The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces. This seems simple enough: Unless Congress declares war or passes some law, or the United States is attacked, the president cannot send U.S. forces into harm’s way. Simple, but irrelevant. Presidents have gotten around this by using that last part about “national emergencies” to justify the use of force; multiple commanders in chief have also—rightly—noted that they may use military power in support of existing treaties (which are the law of the land) if an ally calls for American help. Nearly a decade before the War Powers Resolution existed, President Lyndon B. Johnson ramped up U.S. involvement in Vietnam by claiming self-defense—he said that U.S. ships had been fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin by the North Vietnamese—and the need to honor a treaty commitment to South Vietnam. Congress rewarded him with the open-ended Tonkin Gulf Resolution, empowering him, “as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” Many in Congress regretted issuing LBJ this blank check, and by 1973, American legislators realized that maybe handing out “all necessary measures” passes to presidents might not be a great idea, so they repealed Tonkin Gulf in 1971 and later passed the War Powers Resolution. President Richard Nixon vetoed the resolution, on multiple grounds of constitutionality and prudence, but the Congress of 1973 was in no mood for lectures from Nixon, and it overrode his veto. The problem is that the War Powers Resolution is both too weak and too strong. On the one hand, it requires that the president “consult” Congress only if possible. On the other hand, the resolution sets a firm clock on military action: Within 60 days of notifying Congress, the president “shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted” unless Congress declares war, extends the deadline, or cannot meet because of enemy attack. (That’s a Cold War provision—Congress can’t meet and approve military action if it’s been vaporized by a nuclear strike.) The law, drawn up half a century ago to stop a future LBJ or Nixon, is poorly written, and even now, members of Congress argue over its meaning. (Yesterday, for example, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut admonished Representative Mike Lawler of New York for cherry-picking some of the law’s language.) Assuming that Congress does not pass a law ending the operation, Trump, in theory, has almost two more months to continue the fight. This time limit is, in general, a bad idea. It’s a signal to the enemy that the United States has only two months to fight before its legislative and executive branches possibly go into conflict with each other. In any case, competent strategists do not put expiration dates on their operations; such limits give the opponent an incentive to negotiate in bad faith, to engage in information operations against American voters—or perhaps to up the level of violence and hope that congressional nerves are shaken so badly that even the steeliest president cannot keep a wartime political coalition together. I am familiar with these arguments because I made them in 1990 to my boss, the late Senator John Heinz, when I was his personal assistant for national security and defense. At the time, Heinz and a small group of Republican senators wanted to invoke the War Powers Resolution as President George H. W. Bush was heading toward war against Iraq. Heinz supported Bush’s intentions, and he wanted to avert a challenge to Bush’s authority. The War Powers Resolution is the law of the land, the senator told me, so wouldn’t it help Bush if Congress did its duty and invoked it? I was a lot less concerned about rogue presidents back then, but I was very concerned about time-limiting a war to dislodge Iraq from Kuwait. (Senator Heinz passed away 35 years ago, so I am not spilling secrets here.) I told him that I thought the resolution was of dubious constitutionality, but even more to the point, I asked him whether he was willing to have a floor fight to extend Bush’s authority two months after the war had started. At the time, the Republicans were the minority in Congress, and we talked about what such a messy political brawl might look like in the middle of a war. He and the other GOP senators dropped the idea. In the end, it didn’t matter. One day, after lunch with Bush, Heinz told me that Bush was determined to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait even if it meant his eventual impeachment, no matter what Congress said in the meantime. Yet Bush did go to Congress, and he got resolutions of support from both houses just before combat operations began in January 1991. Right now, Trump has no such worries of impeachment—the GOP controls both houses of Congress, and he has an iron grip on his party (at least until November). But the question remains of whether Congress has any ability to restrain Trump, who has used force more times in more places in just one year than any of his predecessors. At the least, Congress could use the threat of the War Powers Resolution clock to demand hearings and some explanations. Trump and his people have so far explained almost nothing about the rationale for the war. (The secretary of defense, meanwhile, gave a briefing today that amounted to a lot of chest-thumping nonsense about fighting “to win” without being bound by “stupid rules of engagement.”) And invoking the War Powers Resolution would be far less dangerous now that Iran’s military has largely been beaten and the U.S. and Israel have complete control over Iran’s skies. Congress is now set to debate the War Powers Resolution, but the fact that this debate is needed at all is a reminder of how much the exercise of American democracy has historically been predicated not on black-letter law but on trust, norms, and basic decency. Congress should not have to argue over whether to trigger the War Powers Resolution, and certainly not in the midst of conflict; better presidents, even when they have abused their authority, have obviated such a fight by going to Congress, speaking to the American people, and building a consensus for action. Trump, instead, has thrown U.S. service people into combat—and dared everyone to stop him. For now, Congress can try, at least, to use the law to rein in Trump and force him to answer questions about a war he started on his own. But Operation Epic Fury should also impel legislators to think about future ways to place presidential war powers back within the limits of a deliberative, constitutional republic. **********   As for my view, I am still pondering.  But, as I said earlier, my tendency is not to trust Trump with anything.  So, I repeat:  This is a war started by Trump without any endorsement from Congress, nor any remarks to the American people about the rationale for war, a war in which American have already died and more will.