Iran and the Shadow of Previous Wars

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

 Natalie Jackson at National Journal:

Afghanistan was retaliation for 9/11, and was therefore extremely popular. Americans’ desire to avenge the attacks translated to more than 90 percent support for military action. More than 6 in 10 supported a long-term war. Eighteen months later when we went into Iraq, sentiment was still fairly unified and supportive of going after foreign enemies—two-thirds of voters supported military intervention to take out Saddam Hussein, including a majority of Democrats.

It also helped that the international order supported both wars in the beginning. The world was fairly easily convinced—incorrectly, as it turned out—that Iraq was making nuclear weapons. That fear was accompanied by humanitarian concerns and Iraq's alleged terrorist ties.

Both wars ultimately became unpopular and untenable. The eventual wind-down in Afghanistan was chaotic and unpopular, and in mid-2021 more than 6 in 10 Americans said it hadn’t even been worth fighting. In 2019, 62 percent of Americans and 59 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans said the Iraq war had not been worth fighting. There were two big wins: taking Saddam Hussein out of power and killing Osama bin Laden. But for most, there was little point in continuing the wars after those wins.

Americans have become increasingly isolationist in the last 15 years. Donald Trump campaigned on that isolationism, only to turn toward military action and regime change once he returned to office. That the administration is working closely with Israel also colors the reaction to attacking Iran. The American public has grown substantially less favorable toward Israel over the last few years.

We’ve been involved in periodic conflicts with Iran since the late Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979, particularly in trying to keep the ultra-religious regime that chants “death to America” from getting nuclear weapons. But without a huge provocation from Iran, a preemptive strike was always going to be unpopular. Combine that with the recent history of U.S. wars in the region, and you see that public reactions go far deeper than partisanship.

Airstrikes

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

Zachary Basu at Axios: 

No president in the modern era has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump.He's attacked seven nations, three of which — Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela — had never been targeted by U.S. military strikes. He authorized more individual air strikes in 2025 than President Biden did in four years.
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The big picture: Trump's strikes are historically distinctive not just in number but in kind.President Bush's post-9/11 campaigns and President Obama's drone wars were massive in scale — but concentrated in inherited or congressionally authorized theaters. Alongside traditional counterterrorism efforts, Trump has opened new fronts — a Christmas Day strike in Nigeria, drug boats sunk in the Caribbean, Nicolás Maduro snatched from Caracas. His preferred model is consistent: no boots on the ground, no lengthy entanglements, overwhelming force applied quickly and framed as essential to defending American interests.

 

Law and War in Iran

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

Jack Goldsmith at Executive Functions:

We’re already seeing a debate about the legality of President Trump’s use of force in Iran. I’ve grown cynical about these debates. Law is the language we use when criticizing presidential war powers—and it has been since the beginning of the nation. But the truth is that there are only political constraints.

As I’ve been saying for a while, there are no effective legal limitations within the executive branch. And courts have never gotten involved in articulating constraints in this context. That leaves Congress and the American people. They have occasionally risen up to constrain the president’s deployment of troops and uses of force—for example, in Vietnam, and in Lebanon in 1983, and in Somalia in 1993. But those actions are rare and tend only to happen once there is disaster.

Last year, Tom Nichols wrote of an earlier Israeli attack on Iran:

But calling this a “preemptive” strike is questionable. The Israelis, from what we know so far, are engaged in a preventive war: They are removing the source of a threat by surprise, on their own timetable and on terms they find favorable. They may be justified in doing so, but such actions carry great moral and practical risks.

Preemptive attacks, in both international law and the historical traditions of war, are spoiling attacks, meant to thwart an imminent attack. In both tradition and law, this form of self-defense is perfectly defensible, similar to the principle in domestic law that when a person cocks a fist or pulls a gun, the intended victim does not need to stand there and wait to get punched or shot.

Preventive attacks, however, have long been viewed in the international community as both illegal and immoral. History is full of ill-advised preventive actions, including the Spartan invasion of Athens in the fifth century B.C.E., the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the American war on Iraq in 2003. Sometimes, such wars are the product of hubris, miscalculation, or plain fear, but they all share the common trait that a choice was made to go to war based on a threat that was real, but not imminent.

The Israelis, ironically, are in the case books as the clearest example of a legitimate preemptive attack. In 1967, Israel got the jump on an Arab coalition that had been so obvious in its march to war that it was literally broadcasting its intention to destroy Israel while its troops massed for an offensive. Indeed, international-law experts have noted that the 1967 war is so clear that it is not much use as a precedent, because most enemies are not blockheaded enough to assemble an army and declare their intention to invade. (Of course, the Israelis could argue that they are already at war with Iran, a country that has launched many missiles at them and directed years of proxy attacks on their people and their military, which would be a far stronger case.)

 

War, Israel, and Public Opinion

WP:

The U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Saturday, as President Donald Trump vowed to eliminate Tehran’s missiles and nuclear program and fuel a change in government. “I want a safe nation, and that’s what we’re going to have,” Trump told The Washington Post after announcing the start of “major combat operations.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the joint attack would last “as long as needed,” unleashing a conflict that threatens to engulf the region. As explosions rocked Tehran and other cities, Iran pledged a “crushing” retaliation, lobbing missiles toward Israel and targeting U.S. military bases in the Gulf.

In the past, the public might have had a predisposition to approve joint military action with Israel.  A new Gallup survey rasies doubts.


Benedict Vigers at Gallup:

Forty-one percent of Americans now say they sympathize more with the Palestinians in the Middle East situation, while 36% sympathize more with the Israelis. The five-percentage-point difference is not statistically significant, but it contrasts with a clear lead for the Israelis only a year ago (46% vs. 33%) and larger leads over the prior 24 years.

From 2001 to 2025, Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans’ Middle East sympathies, with the gap averaging 43 points between 2001 and 2018. However, public opinion began narrowing in 2019, several years before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. The cumulative effect of gradual changes in U.S. attitudes since then has led to the Israelis no longer being viewed more sympathetically.

For the first time on record, as many independents hold a very or mostly favorable view of the Palestinian Territories as they do of Israel (both 41%). Over the past year, independents’ favorability toward Israel has declined six points, while their favorability toward the Palestinian Territories has risen by 10. Looking at a longer time frame, however, the shift is more pronounced on the Israel side. Since February 2023 — the last measurement before the Oct. 7 attacks — independents’ favorability toward Israel has dropped 26 points, compared with a 12-point increase in their favorability toward the Palestinian Territories.

Among Democrats, the Palestinian Territories have held an edge in favorability since 2025. This year, 48% of Democrats view the Palestinian Territories favorably, compared with 34% for Israel, broadly in line with last year. Republicans remain the most pro-Israel partisan group, with 69% holding a favorable view, though that figure has fallen 15 points from 2025 to its lowest level in over two decades. Meanwhile, a steady 18% of Republicans view the Palestinian Territories favorably, recovering from a record low of 5% in 2024.

 

Negative Net Migration

Many posts have discussed citizenship and expatriation.

Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson  at The Wall Street Journal:

In its 250th year, is America, land of immigration, becoming a country of emigration?

Last year the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: More people moved out than moved in. The Trump administration has hailed the exodus—negative net migration—as the fulfillment of its promise to ramp up deportations and restrict new visas. Beneath the stormy optics of that immigration crackdown, however, lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe.

Since the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. hasn’t collected comprehensive statistics on the number of citizens leaving. Yet data on residence permits, foreign home purchases, student enrollments and other metrics from more than 50 countries show that Americans are voting with their feet to an unprecedented degree. A millions-strong diaspora is studying, telecommuting and retiring overseas.

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The U.S. experienced net negative migration—an estimated loss of some 150,000 people—in 2025, and the outflow will likely increase in 2026, according to calculations by the Brookings Institution, a public-policy think tank. The number could be larger or smaller because official U.S. data doesn’t yet fully capture the number of people leaving, Brookings analysts noted. The total in-migration was between around 2.6 and 2.7 million in 2025, down from a peak of almost 6 million in 2023.

The U.S. saw 675,000 deportations and 2.2 million “self-deportations” last year, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of 15 countries providing full or partial 2025 data showed that at least 180,000 Americans joined them—a number likely to be far higher when other countries report full statistics.

 

SOTU: In Writing Only, Plese

Many posts have discussed the presidency.

 David Frum at The Atlantic:

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution provides that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The Constitution does not set an annual schedule for such information, nor does it require the information to be delivered in person. George Washington and John Adams started the in-person tradition. Thomas Jefferson ended it, both because it reminded him too much of the British practice of the speech from the throne that opens a session of Parliament and (very likely) also because he disliked speaking in public. Woodrow Wilson reverted to the Washington-Adams precedent. Then came television, and the modern State of the Union spectacle. The spectacle is founded, however, on an invitation from the speaker of the House. No invitation, no spectacle.

Given the intentional abuse of Congress’s time and hospitality last night, the next speaker, if there is a different next speaker, should consider very hard whether to extend another such invitation. The case for suffering Trump is that the tradition, if interrupted, may take a long time to return. A future Republican Congress will requite the next Democratic president the same way. But there’s also a risk of setting a precedent that anti-institutional Republicans get to smash things, which pro-institutional Democrats must then clean up. Maybe the only way to restore norms is by imposing some meaningful costs for breaking them. Next January, the next speaker could do everyone a favor with a letter that begins: “Dear Mr. President, the time has come for your State of the Union message. Please send it in writing in the enclosed envelope. Congress will give it all the attention it deserves. This is the method that was good enough for Rutherford B. Hayes, and, Mr. Trump, it is more than good enough for you.”

George Will made a similar point in 2013. 

The Longest SOTU

Many posts have discussed the presidency.

 NPR: