Casus Belli

A confusing and contradictory litany of reasons have been offered up by the administration regarding its actions in Iran. These include among others, the other guy made me do it, the other guy in this case being Israel. Punishment for abandoning an agreement on nuclear enrichment is another, but of course it is we who unilaterally abandoned that agreement. Perhaps the most revealing rationale was cited by the administration's press secretary who noted that the Commander and Chief "had a feeling."

What precisely that means is open to interpretation but it is entirely consistent with prior pronouncements. Consider the reason the President gave justifying his plan to annex Greenland. In his reply to the New York Times about why he intended to pursue this adventure, the President said, "Because that's what I feel is psychologically needed for success." I would wager that none of us could be shocked anymore about anything we hear or read issued by the White House, but this particular statement is so curiously insightful on so many levels as to pull back the curtain on the motivating force behind our present administration. Our leadership defies law and international order bringing us to the brink of a third world war based on his emotional state of mind, his and I emphasize his feelings. How is that for a Casus Belli?

To be clear, Iran is and has been an instigator of countless crimes, a sponsor of terrorism, and an oppressor. These are legitimate reasons enough to engage in statesmanship and if necessary more direct action to achieve an end to its lawlessness. But that justification was not prominent, almost an afterthought that administration officials offered in defense of a premeditated act of war which usurped Congressional authority. And having acted without such authority, the administration declines to reveal the end game, ignoring the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan.

For this President, everything is personal. If you are looking for deeper meaning--a carefully camouflaged strategy--a three dimensional chess move as supporters often allege, don't bother. What the moving hand of our leadership writes is by impulse alone. In this universe there are only subjects, fawning but dispensable sycophants or fearful vassals. Everyone else is an enemy and, therefore, subject to retribution for real and perceived hurts. We, the public, are hostage to this agenda, if one can even describe it as such, given its mercurial and obsessively personal nature.

Don't look for signs of servant leadership, of humility, of a wisdom that places the needs of the nation ahead of all other objectives, they aren't even remotely under consideration except as lip service to ardent followers. The ends do not justify the means, because the ends are not about uniting or healing, growing or rendering peace and prosperity as is often advanced in self serving tweets. Instead, we are force fed a litany of hurts, of denigrating slurs cast on any and everyone who might enjoy the public's respect or the regard of other nations. This is not the pursuit of peace but of recognition begrudged. The end is always and only to satisfy the bottomless pit of unending need to feel what can never be felt.

In a remarkable moment of unwitting candor we are told that violating every precedent of international law and order, of dividing our nation, of upsetting the ever so delicate bonds that have kept us from the brink of annihilation since the close of WW II, that all this is the price we must pay. The price for what? Laws do not matter as we have seen repeatedly, rules, constitutions are merely impediments to be pushed aside when they are inconvenient. The only thing that can stop him, he states is his "own sense of morality". Even emperors of old claimed to derive their authority from God, none in our present age declared themselves above him.

It has never been about what we or our nation wanted or needed, much less what this precarious moment in history demands. We are merely non player characters in a game put on to convince the world that he alone commands the universe. But there will never be enough recognition, enough money, enough power to satisfy this need. Those who cannot obtain the respect and admiration of mankind will settle for fear and division and we are the unwitting and unwilling pawns in their game.