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On Friday, June 13, a storm broke over the Middle East. Anticipated for decades and planned for years, the massive Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear assets was not a surprise to anyone, even if the timing — coming amid protracted negotiations between Iran and the Trump administration — was. Day after day, Israeli forces, including commando units that had infiltrated Iranian territory, attacked targets across Iran, killing dozens of top government officials and nuclear scientists, pulverizing Iran’s hapless military, and bombing multiple nuclear enrichment-related facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and elsewhere. Only the deeply buried nuclear facilities at Fordow were spared, seemingly immune to aerial bombardment. Iran replied with wave after wave of ballistic missile attacks against Israel, inflicting little significant damage.

From the outbreak of the war, the burning question igniting debates in the American media and in coatrooms on Capitol Hill was: Will the United States get involved in direct attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran? Many assumed that President Donald Trump would remain true to his MAGA roots and allow Israel and Iran to settle the matter themselves. The U.S. military assets in the region would be largely confined to a defensive role, helping to shoot down incoming Iranian missiles, with the need to protect tens of thousands of American citizens living in Israel furnishing a not-implausible pretext for such a passive role.

But as events turned out, Trump’s appearance of indecision — repeatedly stating publicly that he had not yet made up his mind on what to do, and holding out for a resumption of negotiations — was a clever deception. Battle plans drawn up years ago to deploy novel weaponry devised primarily for this exact scenario had already been finalized; the only decision left for President Trump was when to execute them. The major operational challenge of the entire war, the destruction of the Fordow facility, had been a sticking point from the beginning. Buried safely beyond the range of Israeli bombs, the top-secret facility was estimated to house enough enriched uranium for a dozen nuclear weapons. But Israel’s only option would have been to land a large commando force, with the obvious implication that it would probably become a suicide mission. The only other option, aside from using nukes to render Fordow inoperable, would be to use America’s vaunted GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs. These 30,000-pound “bunker busters” had been designed specifically for use against Fordow, but had never been deployed in combat. Only American B-2 stealth bombers were outfitted to carry the weapon.

Accordingly, in the early-morning hours of June 22, the United States unleashed Operation Midnight Hammer, which combined a barrage of 40 submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles against Natanz and Isfahan with the dropping of 12 MOPs on Fordow and two on Natanz by B-2 bombers that had flown nonstop from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Although the bombers were escorted by F-35s and F-22s, no enemy fire was detected. The entire operation, including the missile barrage, lasted about 30 minutes, and was announced to the world by a jubilant Trump soon after all American assets had left Iranian airspace.

A tepid, choreographed retaliation by Iran came the following day. In a face-saving gesture, Iran launched missiles at America’s Al Udeid air base in Qatar, inflicting no damage. Hours after the attack, Trump announced a ceasefire, which went into full effect on June 26. What Trump called the “12-day war” ended as suddenly as it began, with reports on the status of Iran’s nuclear program varying widely. Whether or not Iran’s nuclear program has been “completely obliterated,” as President Trump has claimed, or whether it has merely been set back months or years, the local effects of the war have yet to be clear. No regime change in Iran appears to be in the offing, and the wounded Iranian government has unleashed a fearful new wave of repression and mass executions against its hapless citizenry. In stark contrast to our lengthy Iraqi and Afghani quagmires, the Iran conflict appears to be one that Trump is determined not to turn into yet another feckless American exercise in nation building. But significant questions remain: How did the war serve the globalists’ agenda? Has Iran’s nuclear threat truly receded? And, most importantly for the purposes of this publication, did Operation Midnight Hammer, while limited in duration, exceed President Trump’s constitutional authority?

Decades of Drama

The Israel-Iran war of 2025 is but the latest dramatic episode in a long, sordid history of U.S. and Western involvement in Iran stretching back to the mid-20th century. In 1951, a leftist lawyer and politician, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was elected prime minister of Iran. Mosaddegh appeared to be aligned with the Soviets, who had only recently and very reluctantly withdrawn the occupying Red Army from Iran. The Soviets had invaded and occupied Iran with the complicity of the British during World War II, and fully intended to install a communist regime. However, when the United States indicated it would not withdraw its forces from China unless the USSR withdrew theirs from Iran, the occupiers finally left. Now Mosaddegh appeared inclined to tilt Iran toward the Soviets. To make matters worse, he began implementing an ambitious Marxist overhaul of Iran, including the nationalization of the oil industry.

The forcible confiscation of Western oil interests was the final straw. Mosaddegh was removed from power in August 1953 in a CIA-orchestrated coup, and the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been living in exile, was re-installed.

The pro-Western Pahlavi was by all accounts a shrewd leader, and Iran prospered under his rule. At the same time, his time in power harkened back to an earlier era of dynastic absolutism, with Pahlavi himself eventually adopting the title of Shahanshah, or “king of kings,” the epithet attached to all Persian emperors.

The Soviets did not cease their efforts to wrest Iran away from the West, and the resulting Islamic Revolution in 1979, supported by pro-Soviet elements among Western elites, forced the shah back into exile and ushered in the Islamist fascism of the ayatollahs, who have governed Iran with an iron fist ever since. (For more about the shah of Iran, see "Iran and the Shah: What Really Happened.")

One of the first acts of the revolutionary Iranian government, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was to seize the American embassy in Tehran and take 66 American diplomats and other embassy personnel hostage, an appalling affront to internationally recognized standards for the treatment of diplomats, and an act of war besides. The radical student group Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, acting at the behest of Khomeini, stormed the American embassy on November 4, 1979, during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and held the hostages — and the embassy grounds — for the duration of Carter’s term in office, releasing the bulk of them only after 444 days, on January 20, 1981, the day of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration.

The Iran hostage crisis not only marked the start of a de facto state of war that has existed ever since between Iran and the United States, it also supplied revolutionary Iran with many of its future leaders. Many of the gun-toting student radicals who oversaw the embassy takeover, such as Hossein Dehghan, future Iranian defense minister, and Mohammad Ali Jafari, future leader of the Revolutionary Guard, earned their stripes by participating in the humiliation of the hated “American imperialists.”

Indeed, the chief demand of the hostage takers was the return of Iran’s ailing monarch Pahlavi, who had been granted medical asylum in the United States, and who would pass away in July 1980.

In the decades since the 1979 revolution, Iran has consistently been one of America’s top foreign enemies, allegedly plotting various assassinations and terror attacks on U.S. soil, such as recent plots to kill John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, and a 2011 plot to bomb a D.C. restaurant. It has been accused of complicity in a number of spectacular terrorist attacks overseas, including the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building in Buenos Aires and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American servicemen. Iran’s usual modus operandi, however, has been to perpetrate terror attacks using its many proxies, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Yemeni Houthis, and numerous other Middle Eastern militias. It is undoubtedly true that Iran and its many fanatical proxies have accounted for the deaths of many hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans over the years. It is also beyond dispute that Iran has allied itself with all of America’s most repugnant foes, including China, Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela, and was a critical force helping to keep the murderous Assad dynasty in power in Syria.

The Real Story

But, as is so often the case in foreign broils, and especially Middle Eastern ones, the story is a bit more nuanced than simplistic Western media and political sources would have us believe. That revolutionary Iran is a malign influence on regional and global politics is incontestable; but it is also true that American involvement in the region has entangled us in disputes that are probably none of our business. For three and a half decades, since the Persian Gulf War, the United States has garrisoned the Middle East, a profile that increased considerably after the 9/11 terror attacks. Today there are at least 19 American military bases — eight of them permanent — with around 50,000 military personnel, across the Middle East in addition to the constant American naval presence working to keep the Red Sea and Persian Gulf open for maritime trade. While these forces have at times kept a fragile peace in this most volatile of regions, they also present inviting targets for regional enemies and a perpetual rationale among the locals for waging jihad against foreign occupiers. 

And there have been mistakes, such as the accidental shootdown in 1988 of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, a horrific error that cost the lives of 290 innocent passengers. That the event occurred in the fog of the protracted Iran-Iraq War is diminished in hindsight by the fact that the U.S. Navy saw fit to patrol the Persian Gulf in the first place, a region many thousands of miles from American shores, over which our leaders have asserted nebulous “national interests” for many decades.

America’s long entanglement in the Middle East, including its rivalry with Iran, has served the globalist agenda well. It has conditioned Americans to accept interventionism without end. It has furnished a pretext for numerous UN resolutions. And, thanks largely to Iran, it has furnished a basis for constant negotiation with the Russians and the Chinese, with whom the globalists want to eventually effect a merger with the United States.

The top three official rationales for U.S. involvement in the Middle East — and by extension, antagonism toward Iran, the chief rival regional hegemon — are protection of critical oil supplies, combating terrorism, and protecting Israel, our closest ally in the area. But none of these rationales stands up particularly well to close scrutiny. For example, America only gets about 12 percent of its oil from the Middle East these days, with Saudi Arabia and Iraq accounting for seven and four percent, respectively. All the rest is domestically extracted and refined or comes from Canada and other countries in the Western Hemisphere. And that figure could easily increase to nearly 100 percent if Trump’s celebrated colloquialism “drill, baby, drill” becomes a lasting feature of American public policy. Simply put, we do not really need all that Middle Eastern oil, for which the convenience of extracting Saudi Aramco crude oil is more than offset by the tremendous costs for maintaining a massive military presence in the region. 

Global terrorism remains a threat, but it isn’t clear how terror threats on U.S. soil or against U.S. citizens abroad are mitigated by a forward military posture. Most of the terrorism against U.S.-related targets these days is directed against our military assets in the Middle East. The very real danger of infiltration of the homeland by terror cells would be vastly mitigated by rational immigration and border-control policies, which we have not had for many years.

As for our alliance with Israel, the huge number of American citizens living in Israel and the innocent Americans taken hostage on October 7 are certainly valid reasons for some level of involvement; protection of American citizens abroad is a legitimate function of the federal government dating all the way back to the war against the Barbary pirates during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. However, safeguarding American citizens is a far cry from the full-blown military alliance that the United States maintains with Israel. 

The Nuclear Issue

Where the recent war with Iran is concerned, the major casus belli was the allegedly imminent danger of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. As the war’s many detractors have been pointing out, such alarums have been sounding for decades, and have always proven overblown. This time, we were told, things were different. Iran, with its sprawling enrichment program, has now accumulated a large stockpile of uranium enriched to at least 60 percent, allowing for a nuclear “breakout” within a few weeks of such a decision being made by the mad mullahs. However, those of us with long memories recall similar histrionics over Saddam Hussein’s supposed nuclear program and “weapons of mass destruction,” a key justification for the feckless Iraqi quagmire.

In fairness to the Trump administration, it bears pointing out that the Iran bombardment was handled very differently from the protracted war on Iraq. Unlike President George H.W. Bush prior to the Gulf War, Trump did not take his case to the United Nations, or at any time invoke UN authority for his action. He has made it clear that the United States has no interest either in regime change or in the proverbial “boots on the ground” formula that has proven so disastrous in foreign adventures past. 

Of course, none of this is necessarily a reliable predictor of future policymaking. For one thing, the Israeli government is already referring to Iran as a cancer, with the implication that the nuclear program, like a malignant tumor, will grow back and require additional treatment. If and when the time arrives when further military action is deemed necessary, who now can say whether the United States will decide to embark on regime change rather than periodic bombing raids against hard-to-find, hardened targets? After all, following the short, decisive Persian Gulf War, the United States settled into more than a decade of periodic bombing raids in Iraq to enforce a “no fly zone” — only to eventually tire of the status quo and launch a ground invasion and occupation in 2003 that ended up costing many thousands of American lives and up to a million Iraqi lives. Now that the long-standing taboo against attacking Iran has been cast aside, it is likely that further military action will eventually ensue.

The Constitutional Question

But the real rub, as with all foreign wars, is whether President Trump has the constitutional authority to order a limited military strike on another country without congressional approval. The raid on Iran was but the most recent in a long string of such modern presidential actions, which in recent decades have included, but are not limited to, President George H.W. Bush’s invasion of Panama in 1989, President Bill Clinton’s 1994 intervention in Haiti, Clinton’s bombing of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998, Clinton’s participation in the 1999 Kosovo War, and President Barack Obama’s 2014 airstrikes in Syria. The U.S. military has also recently carried out attacks in Somalia, Yemen, and Libya, and has been involved in logistical operations in many other countries, such as Mali and Niger, where Islamic terrorists have been active. And, while the frequency of such operations has increased dramatically in recent decades, they are not entirely a modern aberration. Beginning with the undeclared “Quasi-War” against France from 1798-1800 and the two campaigns against the Barbary pirates in 1801-1805 and 1815-1816, the United States has been involved in dozens of military actions overseas without congressional declarations of war, every one of which has stirred debate over the limits of presidential war powers.

Regarding that most solemn of government powers, the power to wage war, the Constitution delegates authority both to the executive and to the legislative branch. Regarding the former, the first clause of Article II, Section 2 states:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.

Note that the final subordinate clause about “actual service” has reference only to the militia, and not to the military writ large, as discussion of this clause in The Federalist makes clear. For example, Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist, No. 69, observes, “The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union.” Thus, the president’s role as commander in chief of the armed forces is not intermittent or subject to congressional sufferance. He does have, by virtue of being chief executive, a certain measure of discretionary authority to command the military. It seems clear, for example, that presidential orders regarding mobilization, non-bellicose movement of troops, military exercises, and other peacetime military actions are in line with his role as commander in chief.

But what about hostile actions, whether in the form of a limited military strike for preemptive purposes, or as a reprisal for some hostile action by a foreign power? Here honest opinions differ, and the Constitution itself is not entirely clear on this issue. Article I, Section 8 grants a broad writ of authority to Congress regarding war powers:

[The Congress shall have power to] declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; [and]

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.

Congress has the exclusive power to fund the military, and is also empowered to regulate the use of military forces. It is responsible for calling up state militias in the service of the military. And, perhaps most importantly, Congress, and not the president, is vested with the authority to declare war. Declarations of war create a legal state of total war, effectively putting all citizens and governments on notice that trade, travel, and other relations with the hostile power will no longer be countenanced, and that citizenries are under obligation to support possible mobilizations. Absent a declaration, war can be a very messy business, since citizens cannot know for sure whether communication or trade with citizens of a hostile power is treasonous, or whether they are under any legal obligation to support the war effort at home. At the same time, a declaration of war, like any other piece of legislation, can be a cumbrous process, and might prove a hindrance to public safety and even national survival in the event of a sudden, overwhelming attack. 

The basic tenor of what the Founders hoped to accomplish by assigning a broad range of war powers to the legislative branch, while making the president the commander in chief, is set forth in the language of The Federalist, Nos. 69 and 70. From No. 70, we see the importance of an “energetic” executive branch. Wrote Hamilton:

There is an idea, which is not without its advocates, that a vigorous Executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican government…. Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy….

A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.

In other words, the president’s hands are not to be completely tied in matters of war and peace. However, in the The Federalist, No. 69, Hamilton makes it very clear that the president’s authority over the military falls far short of a monarchical prerogative:

The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets and armies, all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.

A declaration of war creates a state of total war, such as what the United States experienced in World War II. Most wars, however, have been more limited in scope. It is accordingly argued by some that the president in his capacity as commander in chief does have the authority to engage in limited military actions. One of the few Supreme Court decisions clarifying the balance of war powers between the president and Congress, the 1800 Bas v. Tingy decision, affirmed the legality of Congress’ authorization of the Quasi-War against France. In that case, Congress had passed a measure approving military action. But it was not a declaration of war, since the United States wished to avoid all-out war with its former ally. 

This became the early template for undeclared wars. The two Barbary wars, for instance, were undertaken with congressional approval and in more or less continuous consultation with Congress. The idea was that a declaration of war involved a monstrous and solemn national commitment, and in many cases would be too extreme a course of action. But in keeping with the obvious spirit and letter of Article I, Section 8, even limited wars required congressional authorization, with the only rational exception being a full-blown national emergency for which Congress had no time to deliberate or act. In this way, the presumption is always in favor of congressional authority and oversight, with the executive branch always operating at the behest of the people’s branch of government. Bona fide exceptions to this formula would be exceedingly rare.

Modern Complications

In our day, of course, several hostile powers do possess the means to launch sudden nuclear attacks against the American homeland, and it would be fatuous to expect congressional approval before the executive branch could take any defensive or retaliatory action. But action taken without congressional authority to preclude a hostile power such as Iran acquiring such weapons in the indefinite future is a considerably murkier proposition.

Whatever the possible merits of acting preemptively to prevent Iran from becoming the next North Korea, the Iranian situation does not now appear to be a national emergency requiring precipitate presidential action. The sudden Israeli onslaught may well have forced matters, but the Iranian threat is not new, or so we are told. Therefore, it is not clear why Trump (or any of his recent predecessors, for that matter) did not long ago request authorization from Congress to attack Iranian nuclear sites should the need arise. 

While President Trump campaigned on an anti-war platform, the Iran operation is his second attack on a foreign country (the first was the April 2017 missile strike against Assad’s Syria). We hope that Operation Midnight Hammer will be a one-off, and that America will abandon its interventionist policies, fully repudiate globalism, and restore the constitutional balance of power, with Congress and not the president as the supreme authority over war and peace.