President Trump’s decision to start bombing Iran to bring about regime change was especially irrational in contrast with his sophisticated approach to deposing Venezuelan President Maduro. To extract the United States from this seemingly intractable war, he should focus on economic means to bankrupt Iran along with promises to use more bombing if necessary to keep its resources for nuclear weapons development entombed in rubble. And We the People must insist that future presidents and members of Congress adhere to the intentions of those who wrote the Constitution and limit the president’s war-making powers to commanding the armed forces to repel attacks on the United States but otherwise requiring the president to secure congressional approval before ordering our armed forces into wars of choice.
One of the unsolved mysteries surrounding the launching of our current war in Iran is President Trump’s original motive. He initially said that the purpose of the first aerial bombardments was to promote regime change. But that really never made much sense. After all, when Trump deposed Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, he rejected regime change, despite both the evil and the unpopularity with the Venezuelan people of the Maduro government. But Trump’s assessment was sound. He understood that however much the Venezuelan people loathed their government, Maduro’s security services had a monopoly on guns. A democratically elected president would stand no chance of success unless Trump sent in a sufficiently large contingent of “boots on the ground” to combat Maduro’s forces and protect the people and the new regime from a bloody civil war. And given America’s experiences with our “forever wars” in Vietnam and the Middle East, Trump wisely and rightly decided that while bloodshed would be inevitable, success would be chancy at best. So he made what I thought was the correct decision and kept the Maduro regime, to be headed by Maduro’s Vice President, albeit under a presumably tight leash.
But nonetheless Trump chose to promote regime change with no boots on the ground in Iran, despite the fact that Iran has twice the territory, three times the population, and a more brutal regime than Venezuela’s. In calling for a popular uprising against the Iranian government, he evidently failed to consider that the Iranian people, like the Venezuelans, were unarmed and under the thumb of a regime which earlier in 2026 had shot and killed at least 30,000 protesters.
Of course, Trump has offered other rationales for waging war against Iran as well: He wants to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons program, even though he said it had already been “obliterated” last year. And he wants to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which had been open before the onset of the war.
But now it seems as if we’ve reached a stalemate in the war. As of this writing, there seems little movement by either side. So what can be done?
Mark Thiessen, a Trump-friendly columnist for the Washington Post, has recommended—rightly, I believe—that Trump should continue to apply economic pressure—blockades and sanctions—as well as support tariffs on imports from countries purchasing Iranian oil. Continued aerial assaults to further degrade Iran’s war-making capacity and keep its resources and equipment for nuclear weapons development further entombed are also in order. Following these courses of action may eventually wear down Iran and force it to open the Strait of Hormuz.
But in the long run, to prevent further fiascos, we should elect senators, representatives, and presidents who will accept the principle that other than acting unilaterally to repel a foreign invader, the president must seek congressional approval, in most cases, before ordering our troops into combat. When I first criticized Trump for attacking Iran without a prior congressional resolution authorizing him to do so, his supporters among my readers said that the War Powers Resolution Act allows presidents to shoot first and explain later, and that several of Trump’s predecessors had done just that. And that’s the problem. The War Powers Resolution Act, passed in 1973 to limit presidential war powers, nonetheless provided a legal justification by which presidents could attack first and thereby strengthen the precedent of presidential war making without prior congressional approval. We must reverse that in order to reduce the chances of future fiascos like the war in Iran: No more presidential war making without congressional approval, as George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other writers of our Constitution intended.
Of course, a return to first constitutional principles will not guarantee the prevention of disasters. President George W. Bush did, in fact, secure congressional approval for launching his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which turned out to be the sort of “forever wars,” like the war in Vietnam, which President Trump has rightly denounced. But securing congressional approval before sending troops into combat will at least prevent the launching of a war because of one single person’s poor judgment.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville Economic Development Authority since 2018, and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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