Donald Goes to War

(Rally remarks June 22 2025)

Thank you for coming on this dark day after an unprecedented and wholly unconstitutional aggressive act of war: Donald Trump has disregarded Congress and bombed Iran’s main nuclear facilities. You may recall that George Bush did something similar in March 2003, when he sent the American military to invade Iraq, claiming falsely that Iraq had developed “weapons of mass destruction.”

But the historical analogy only goes so far. Bush had Congressional approval, while Trump has acted illegally, on his own, not seeking a vote from Congress and not explaining to the American people why it’s necessary to go to war with Iran. Bush’s decision to launch an invasion launched a war that lasted eight years and cost thousands of American lives, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqis’. One shudders to think what Trump’s action will lead to.

You may also recall that in 2015, Iran and six world powers, including the United States under Obama, signed a landmark nuclear agreement. Iran agreed to significantly reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium, limit the number of its centrifuges, and modify its heavy-water reactor. In effect, Iran would not develop a nuclear weapon, in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

In the words of the Obama administration in 2015, “[This accord] blocks every possible pathway Iran could use to build a nuclear bomb while ensuring--through a comprehensive, intrusive, and unprecedented verification and transparency regime--that Iran’s nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful moving forward.” But then in 2018, Donald Trump trashed that accord and reimposed economic sanctions on Iran. Trump ignored the advice of America’s allies, who had urged him to stay with the deal and build on it. France, Germany, and the UK expressed their grave misgivings about his rash and stupid action.

In 2025, Israel, led by an unhinged Netanyahu, is attacking all its enemies, now including Iran. This is hardly the appropriate time to theorize about Trump’s motivations, but you have to wonder if Netanyahu (as well as Putin) is some sort of father figure for Donald; even though Bibi doesn’t always do what Donald expects, Donald obediently does Bibi’s bidding. So Trump, who campaigned on the firm promise that he’d never take America into war, has gone to war.

What was intended as an efficient invasion of Iraq led to eight years of bloodshed, and it is that war that gave birth to international terrorism, too. It’s difficult to imagine the US getting out of war with Iran and its allies any time soon. And difficult to imagine that there won’t be raging inflation, a catastrophic loss of the United States’ preeminence in diplomacy, and terrorist reprisals on American soil.

Trump’s brief words to the nation last night show he hardly feels the need to justify the massive strikes as necessary and based in facts on the ground--just as he has stopped justifying his roundup of brown people in America as the roundup of dangerous criminals. The most powerful country in the world has landed itself what its rotten politics deserve: a tin-pot dictator who listens to no one but his fawning and scheming loyalists.

What can we do? Protest, louder than ever, participate in strikes, write senators and representatives in Congress, and embody democratic values as we resist the madness. The 50501 Movement is calling for July 4th as a day of community action – food drives, mutual aid, skills sharing, community building. Take part in the next nationwide protest scheduled for July 17 (at least, that’s what the plans were before our country was plunged into war: stay tuned and stay flexible).  Prepare for the long haul with determination, creativity, courage, and community, and keep your loved ones close.

These rallies are more important than ever, as an island of sanity and togetherness and action in a world that’s going through a dangerous time, led by soulless men. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice; let’s fulfill our purpose on earth by bending it together.

To get us going today, let’s sing a refrain that John and Yoko gave to the antiwar movement back in 1969, a lifetime ago. “All we are saying /  Is give peace a chance.”  Make beautiful harmonies!

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