Let Slip the Dogs of war
We are all in now.
With Iran, our terroristic, mad fanatic nemesis for the past four decades, the sudden unilateral act of war by Donald Trump to destroy that country’s nuclear capability, and with that its current ruling regime, means only one thing:
The end game must be—and one hopes will be—the toppling of the current Iranian regime and its nuclear-weaponized belief in a radical Muslim hegemony over not just the middle east, but the entire world.
There’s no going back. We are all in, even if there is a ceasefire.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is father of the phrase “if you strike at a king, you must kill him,” but the principal of not starting a fight you can’t afford to lose goes much further back: to the Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527.)
In his treatise “The Prince,” he said rulers could engage in evil when political necessity requires it. He even went so far as to declare that, under dire circumstances, even otherwise successful leaders of governments should be excused for killing other leaders who would oppose them.
Sound familiar? I am looking squarely at Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin.
The dilemma America now faces is not whether Iran should be allowed to build a nuclear bomb; no one in his right mind supports such a view, given that country’s hairy-assed fanaticism and religious extremism, and willingness to bankroll all kinds of horror worldwide to achieve those ends.
Rather the questions arise of 1, whether Iran actually was capable of quickly building nuclear weapons, and 2, whether the country’s nuclear program could have been effectively limited to peaceful ends via international pressure and diplomacy—as tried before—with measurable, if not complete, success—by the Obama administration. (Trump tore up that treaty.)
Given the inarguable uncertainty of both questions, “Only one outcome is certain,” noted The Atlantic magazine in its current editorial.
“Hypocrisy in the region and around the world will reach galactic levels as nations wring their hands and silently pray that the (American) B-2s carrying the bunker-buster bombs did their job.”
Politics always is messy (“strange bedfellows, etc.) And Middle East politics is messier than most. Who, for example, could deny Israel’s rage and retaliation after the horrific Hamas slaughter of innocents in October of 2023?
Yet who in his right mind could support Netanyahu’s unrelenting genocide against Hamas in Gaza? Like Trump, Bibi is a corrupt, power-hungry pol who is war-mongering his way forward to avoid being toppled from power and (very likely ) sent to prison.
The parallels with Trump are obvious, and also scary. As Robert Reich notes:
“[T]he attacks [on Iran] fit perfectly with Trump’s desire to divert attention from his multiple failures at home: The on-again-off-again tariffs that have spooked financial markets while eliciting no meaningful concessions from other nations (especially China). An immigration crackdown that’s been stymied by federal judges. The so-called “big beautiful bill” that’s in deep trouble in the Senate. Trump’s embarrassing tiff with [Elon] Musk. His failures to achieve peace in either Ukraine or Gaza. And last weekend’s record-breaking ‘No Kings’ demonstrations as compared to his scrawny military parade.
“Besides, there’s nothing like a war to help a wannabe dictator like Trump justify more ‘emergency’ powers … .”
The Atlantic editorial went on to note that despite warnings about the imminence of an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability and the need to engage in preemption, for Netanyahu “this was a preventive war. The Israelis could not destroy sites such as Fordow without the Americans. Israeli military actions suggest that Netanyahu was trying to increase the chances of regime change in Tehran while making a side bet on dragging Trump into the fray and outsourcing the tougher nuclear targets to the United States.”
Robert Kagan, longtime foreign policy scholar and advisor, now a senior fellow at Brookings, writes that Trump’s unilateral war-making fits well into his wannabe dictator game plan.
“Donald Trump has assumed dictatorial control over the nation’s law enforcement. The Justice Department, the police, ICE agents and the National Guard apparently answer to him, not to the people or the Constitution. He has neutered Congress by effectively taking control of the power of the purse. And, most relevant in Iran’s case, he is actively and openly turning the U.S. military into his personal army, for use as he sees fit, including as a tool of domestic oppression. Whatever action he does or doesn’t take in Iran will likely be in furtherance of these goals. When he celebrates the bombing of Iran, he will be celebrating himself and his rule… .”
Meanwhile, it’s fair to say that the rest of the world now lives literally in fear of its life. The GOP Congress has all but ceded all its power to the White House. Theoretically, someone could propose a vote on the War Powers Act, reasserting Congress sole authority to declare war. It also would put isolationist Republicans on record supporting Trump’s go-it-alone war.
But that presupposes, for example, that Washington will not be otherwise occupied digging itself out of a dirty bomb attack, or some other mayhem ordered by whatever Ayatollah is still standing.
Judy and I live in Chevy Chase, DC. A dear friend, who lives closer in, wrote to us the other morning: “We could sneak in drinks on the porch maybe on the 4th of July or Sat the 5th? It might be better to not be near the epicenter of the bombs that Iran is going to deliver. Chevy Chase will likely not be far enough but it's better than being this close to the White House.”
I wanted to laugh, but couldn’t.
Frank Van Riper is a Washington-based documentary and fine art photographer, journalist and author. During 20 years with the New York Daily News, he served as White House correspondent, national political correspondent and Washington Bureau news editor. He also is the former photography columnist of the Washington Post. His latest book, done in collaboration with his wife and partner Judith Goodman, is “The Green Heart of Italy: Umbria and its Ancient Neighbors” (Fall, ’25).
