Teddy Roosevelt once advised that we should “speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Donald Trump, like all modern presidents, carries the biggest stick in the world. And it has performed marvelously, including the daring rescue of a downed airman inside Iran last weekend. The skill and bravery of both the airman, who hid for days in a mountain crevice until his rescuers arrived, and those who risked their lives to save him, should serve as an inspiration for all of us and a reason to celebrate.
Instead, the president sent out this message at 8:03 a.m. on Easter Sunday: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the F…in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”
I am writing this on Sunday morning. There is a chance that by Tuesday the president’s threat will have worked, Iran will have backed down and we will be sending our troops home to be the stars in well-earned victory parades throughout the nation.
If that happens, I will happily admit I was wrong, and it will be the tastiest crow I’ve ever eaten. But, given the fact that a few days earlier he had threatened to bomb them “back into the stone age,” it seems the only thing new with this latest message is the ‘f bomb.”
After launching a war that we claimed was intended to liberate the Iranian people, we are now threatening to slaughter them.
“When power plants collapse, horrific consequences cascade immediately,” said Erika Guevara Rosas of the group Amnesty International. “Water-pumping stations would stop functioning, clean water would become scarce and preventable diseases would spread. Hospitals would lose electricity and fuel, forcing life-support machines to be shut down. Food production and distribution networks would collapse, deepening hunger and causing widespread food scarcity.”
None of that is theory. We have just seen that exact same scenario in Gaza. Now, our president is following the playbook of Benjamin Netanyahu.
If the president follows through with his threat, there will be plenty of sharp-witted legal scholars who will rush to his defense with carefully-worded explanations as to why that does not constitute a war crime. And, let’s be honest, we can get away with just about anything. Who is there to hold us accountable?
But there are laws higher than those written by men. Starting wars and slaughtering innocents in order to seize the oil of other nations most definitely puts us on the wrong side of those laws.
We have placed the world’s greatest fighting force in the hands of an inexperienced fool who was raised on video games and is now firing older, wiser officers who have a more sober view of armed combat.
The president is flailing. He has established objectives that can’t be met without massive escalation. He seems to believe that if he inflicts suffering on the Iranian people, that will force its leaders to capitulate. It won’t.
It is well past time for Congress to step in and assert its constitutional authority. We can no longer allow the president to unilaterally drag us further into the quagmire.
Walter Rubel can be reached at waltrubel@gmail.com.
Walt Rubel's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.