When is an act of war not?

It is surely mystifying, isn’t it?

America just dropped bombs on Iran, and one of the questions being most discussed is whether that constitutes an act of war.  

What else could it possibly be?

Only in a nation beset by a confusion of lawyers could the question arise.  Bombing someone else’s country is an act of war.  Whether it fits neatly within one of the clauses of a piece of paper written a long time ago and which has been repeatedly ignored throughout the years is not relevant.

Except in America.

Where the media seems to have accepted the party line that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is of sufficient threat to world peace that it is an existential and imminent threat.  So bombing Iran has slowly become a totally acceptable thing to do.  That appears to be the uniform point of view of our serious people.  And hence the media.

Which allows for a change of subject.  It shifts the focus.  Instead of discussing the dropping of bombs, we are discussing legal technicalities.  We are not debating whether dropping bombs is good or bad.  We are debating whether it fits within the tradition of American legal, constitutional, and political practice.  Conveniently for everyone involved we skipped past go.   There was no need to discuss the moral efficacy of actually dropping bombs.  That is a given.  This is Iran after all.  No, the real issue is the legal fine point of whether the President overstepped his authority by not getting Congressional permission first.  The lack of such permission makes dropping bombs illegal and — roll the drums — potentially not an act of war.  Technically speaking.  

The legal fees start piling up.  The politicians cluster in front of television cameras.  Long arcane articles appear in the press.  Think tanks announce special events.  Academics dust off arguments for and against.  References to various pieces of legislation dominate the news.   No one is seriously interested in the morality of dropping bombs on someone else.  As I said, this is Iran after all.  Not at all.  This is clearly a legal question: when is an act of war not an act of war?

So, in true American style, the act of dropping bombs is seen more an issue of constitutional law and political contest than, well, being warlike.

Various American government officials have been very careful to tread this legal line.  They have been unanimous in pointing out to us all that “America is not at war with Iran … it is at war with Iran’s nuclear program”.  This distinction must give great comfort to everyone involved.   It’s unequivocal.  Dropping bombs on Iran is only act of war if Congress says so.  And since Congress didn’t say so, these particular bombs are not warlike.  Not as far as Iran is concerned.  They just happen to have been dropped on Iran.  Though not in a warlike fashion.  Not at all.  

Presumably they came in peace.

Sure.

Having said all this, I must admit it fits neatly within the overall rubric of the American attitude towards the Middle East.  Iran is unquestionably a major irritant.  It has a detestable leadership.  What ought to be a large prosperous nation is held back by an ancient anti-modern religious ideology designed to prevent development and freedom.  Iranians have been ill-served by their political leaders for decades.  And like all regimes built upon ancient religious views it has a restrictive and throttling hold on its own people.  The leadership is deathly afraid of allowing modernity to creep in because it would undermine its authority.  So, like all such theocracies, it surrenders its purported moral basis in order to maintain itself in power.  

Theocracies ought to be inimical to American politics generally.  They are anti-modern.  They are anti-freedom.  Any nation run by, or on behalf of, a religious sect is foreign to American principles.  But America has always had its own strain of religious extremism.  So that particular value — of religious tolerance and freedom — is one that gets set aside once in a while.  

Which has muddied the American approach to the Middle East for decades.  

So, the bombs come in peace.  They are not an act of war.

Not yet anyway.

Meanwhile the lawyers do what lawyers do: obscure things, so that what looks obvious is anything but.

Nah!  Dropping bombs is obviously not an act of war!  Phew.  That makes me feel much better.