It seems increasingly likely that the United States will once again soon be at war — this time with Iran, a regional heavyweight, long-time nemesis of the West and state-sponsor of extremist terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and many more.
President Donald Trump previously insisted that U.S. forces “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities in June, when the U.S. joined Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic Republic and supposedly reintroduced America’s peace-through-strength deterrent.
So, if Iran’s nuclear threat has been “obliterated,” why is the U.S. heading headlong toward war now? Well, to stop Iran from building or acquiring a nuclear weapon, of course.
To put it plainly, Iran became much closer to having a nuclear weapon — thanks to Trump.
You see, most of Iran’s weapons-grade enriched uranium was either moved prior to the attacks or survived the 14 bunker-buster bombs the U.S. dropped on its nuclear facilities. Years before that, Trump ripped up the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that allowed for Iran to have some nuclear capabilities, subject to regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Iran responded by massively increasing its uranium enrichment.
To put it plainly, Iran became much closer to having a nuclear weapon — thanks to Trump.
Now the president, who ran on an “America First” isolationist foreign policy and politically capitalized on the backlash to the “forever wars” former President George W. Bush launched in Afghanistan and Iraq, has America once again on the brink of a major conflict sold on dubious pretenses. The difference is, unlike Bush’s wars, Trump has barely even attempted to sell the merits of his wars to the American public or Congress.
At this critical juncture, it’s important to remember what happens to most countries, but particularly America, when it goes to war. Residents are expected to “put politics aside,” “rally around the flag” and “support the troops.” Dissent is vilified, and sometimes even criminalized.
The frequently misunderstood “fire in a crowded theater” legal analogy itself came from the 1919 Supreme Court decision in Schenck v. United States, which found that socialist protesters leafleting against the military draft during World War I constituted a “clear and present danger” to the country and was punishable under the Espionage Act. (That standard was replaced in 1969’s Brandenburg v. Ohio decision, though the “fire in a crowded theater” analogy, unfortunately, remains prominent in popular thinking today.)
Though the protests against the Vietnam and Iraq wars have aged well, at the time they were widely seen as unpatriotic, disloyal and providing aid and comfort to the enemy. But there are some important differences between America’s body politic today and during those earlier eras. America’s involvement in Vietnam started slowly, before becoming all-encompassing, and it took place squarely in the middle of the Cold War, its justifying logic built on the so-called “domino theory” that all of East Asia would go communist if the Viet Cong won. The Iraq War was sold (on lies) to a public still traumatized by losing thousands of fellow Americans on 9/11.
There is no clear justification for starting a war with Iran right now, nor is their a popular clamoring for war. And if the conflict ends up lasting longer than a few weeks — or if there’s blowback in the form of terror attacks on Americans at home or abroad — it’s hard to say how the American public will react. I’ve long argued that Trump would exploit a “Black Swan” event like a major terror attack to invoke emergency powers that would infringe on civil liberties. If anything, I’ve actually underestimated the extent he’d do so without an actual emergency. Trump is deeply unpopular, but his MAGA followers remain devoted to no coherent ideology other than “Orange Man Great.” In his first 13 months back in power, Trump and his administration have assaulted free speech by targeted activists for deportation based on their politics; declared peaceful protesters to be “domestic terrorists”; deployed the military on America soil to restore “public order”; filed bogus shakedown lawsuits against news organizations, law firms and universities; threatened to use regulatory power for political purposes; unleashed a secret police force that acts without due process and has killed U.S. citizens with no accountability or transparency; and declared the use of words like “fascist” to be incitement to violence against right-wingers (even though they use the word themselves regularly to describe their political opponents). Even observing federal agents — a First Amendment right — is something the administration has sought to criminalize. And now the administration is reportedly sending subpoenas to major tech companies demanding information on accounts that are critical of the government’s brutal immigration crackdown. This is far from a comprehensive list, and if Trump sends America to war, then expect the federal government to ramp up its war on free speech, dissent and accountability. Trump’s power grab is a failure of American institutions — but he is not invincible. He is a flailing bully presiding over an administration whose popularity is in free-fall. If the president puts America on a war-footing, do not obey in advance. Know your rights — and express yourself.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW, often covering free speech, civil liberties and extremism. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.
Trump is deeply unpopular, but his MAGA followers remain devoted to no coherent ideology other than “Orange Man Great”; they will abandon their “America First” isolationism at his command just as quickly as they ditched their free market principles, becoming jingoistic war cheerleaders as easily as they became tariff and punitive regulation groupies.
