Trump's Iran War Began Without Anyone Knowing Why

Early Saturday, the United States launched what President Donald Trump called a "massive" war against Iran. But here's the unsettling truth: nobody—not Congress, not the public, perhaps not even the administration itself—really knows why.

For weeks, America had been quietly amassing an unprecedented force in the Middle East. An estimated 40 to 50 percent of the entire deployable US air fleet now sits in the region. Yet throughout this massive military buildup, the Trump administration offered no coherent public justification for why they were preparing for war, what such a conflict would achieve, or how they'd define victory.

A War of Contradictions

After the bombing began, Trump delivered an eight-minute speech that raised more questions than it answered. He rattled off familiar grievances: Iran's anti-Americanism, its support for terrorist groups, and its nuclear program (which he'd previously claimed to have "completely obliterated" in last year's airstrikes).

"For these reasons," Trump declared, "the United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests."

But what does "preventing Iran from threatening America" actually mean? Trump's speech offered two fundamentally different answers—and they can't both be true.

Initially, he suggested a focused military campaign: the US would "raze their missile industry to the ground," "annihilate their navy," and "ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon." These are concrete, achievable military objectives.

Then came the bombshell: "To the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take."

Regime change. A completely different war.

Iran's missiles and nuclear facilities aren't tools of domestic repression—they're external threats. If Trump truly wants the Iranian people to "rise up," he'd need to target the Revolutionary Guard, police forces, and Basij paramilitaries who've slaughtered thousands of protesters. That's not a bombing campaign—that's a ground invasion of a country with 90 million people.

The Dictator's Playbook

What's most alarming isn't the confusion—it's how familiar this feels. When America has gone to war before, presidents felt obligated to make their case. Even the disastrous 2003 Iraq invasion began with months of (flawed) intelligence briefings and congressional authorization.

Not this time. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, admitted just yesterday that the White House's thinking remains "a mystery." No congressional debate. No public justification. No clear objectives.

This isn't how democracies wage war—it's how autocrats do.

The closest parallel isn't any previous American conflict. It's Vladimir Putin's2022 invasion of Ukraine. Before that war, many experts couldn't believe it would happen because it made no strategic sense. Ukraine posed no threat to Russia. There was no obvious economic or security benefit that could justify the enormous risks.

But Putin, isolated in his echo chamber and drunk on his own power, had convinced himself that Ukraine was a "fake country" that would collapse at the first push. With no institutional constraints on his authority, he was free to launch a war that's since proven catastrophic for Russia.

America's Accidental Autocracy

For two decades, American presidents have steadily accumulated warmaking powers. It began with George W. Bush's expansive "war on terror," but every successor built on that foundation. Congress, paralyzed by partisan divisions, did little to reclaim its constitutional role.

The result? We've accidentally created a presidency with the same unilateral warmaking powers as a dictatorship. The only constraint on presidential military action is the president's own judgment—and Trump's judgment, as we're seeing, can be erratic and contradictory.

From Caribbean boat bombings to last summer's Iran nuclear strikes to January's abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the current approach to military force seems to be: "If we feel like it, we'll do it."

Now they feel like launching an open-ended war against a major regional power—without knowing if they want to destroy Iran's military or topple its government entirely.

"This war is nothing short of a chaotic lashing out of an aimless administration that doesn't know or care what it wants for Iran," writes Hussein Banai, an expert on US-Iran relations at Indiana University-Bloomington.