As events in the Middle East unfold, March 2nd, 2026.

Introduction.

So it appears that events in the Middle East have, once again, overtooken us.

The United States and Israel have launched a joint operation to topple the Iranian regime, and to date have

successfully killed the Ayatollah and a number of other regime leaders. From a military standpoint,

the early returns all point to a successful operation. For reasons stated in that tweet off

to the right there, the time I have to address this is somewhat limited. Within those limits, what are we

to make of it? War powers. The framing for this next point is the way we do things now. I don't have any doubt that the actions that have been taken are fully legal in accord with the War Powers Act and all that. In other words, it is copacetic and in line with the way we do things these days. But I don't like the way we do things these days and would much prefer the older constitutional order.

In the olden days, Congress declared the war and the president prosecuted the war.

There are, of course, military actions that would be brief enough and or limited enough that they would not require this,

dealing with a flotilla of pirates, say.

But when the effect of your action accomplishes a regime change in a sovereign country, then that appears to me to be what that portion of the Constitution is actually for. On the one hand, and then on the other. But if this action by Trump is out of line, then Obama authorizing our action against Gaddafi and Libya was out of line in exactly the same way. Or if you want to complain in the other direction, the actions

of Bush the first against Saddam Hussein would also be out of line. And this kind of reasoning is one of the

things that has turned our overseas military actions into a political football in our domestic politics.

A constitutional action by the president should not be defined as one which a president from your

political party took. An unconstitutional action is not to be defined as one which a president from your political party took. An unconstitutional action

is not to be defined as one which the opposing party took. One of the great disadvantages of our

current way of doing things is that it permits this kind of hypocritical posturing. Democrats calling

this unconstitutional simply means that they don't like Trump and want to say anything negative

that they can. The fact that Congress

does not declare war anymore opens the door wide open for this kind of nonsense. So I do yearn for a time

when we can get back to a constitutional order instead of our makeshift contemporary legal order.

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