The quarrel over Iran continues to drift, stalled somewhere between indecision and inertia, with no plausible path to success. And now, belatedly, some commentators — David Brooks, Scott Galloway, and Bill Maher among them — have shifted from “let’s see how it plays out” to open criticism of the war. They are not wrong to say it hasn’t worked.
But that is not the point.
The point is the decision.
The decision to go to war is the most consequential act a government can undertake. That is why the Constitution divides responsibility for it. Presidents bring urgency and information. Congress brings consent. Military leaders bring expertise. Allies bring perspective. The process is cumbersome by design because the stakes are irreversible.
There are many reasons the United States avoided direct war with Iran for decades, despite repeated provocations and proxy conflicts. To initiate a war requires more than presidential impulse. It requires legitimacy.
We can argue endlessly about the conduct of a war once it begins. But if the decision itself is made through lawful, deliberative, and collective mechanisms, then even a flawed outcome is at least the product of a system designed to restrain folly. If the decision is made outside those mechanisms, then even a “successful” war corrodes the very order that prevents the powerful from invading the weak at will.
This is where hindsight becomes a trap.
It is easy to oppose a war only after it fails. But that is not judgment; it is autobiography. It tells us nothing about the wisdom of the decision at the moment it was made.
So as new targets of American attention appear — Cuba, Greenland, et cetera — the question is not whether it might eventually “work out.” The question is whether we have asked the only questions that matter:
Why are we doing this?
Is it lawful?
Has Congress been consulted?
What is the end state?
What is the limiting principle?
These are not academic concerns. They are the guardrails that prevent power from becoming appetite.
The decision is the whole point.
Let us not wait until later to decide we were against it.
Very wise and timely essay.