March 9, 2026
In the early hours of February 28th, the Trump Administration launched in conjunction with Israel a full-scale war against Iran, killing the Iranian Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many other high officials of the Iranian government. The attack aimed to destroy Iran's nuclear program, but Iran retained enough missiles to launch counterattacks against American bases, as well as targets in Israel and neighboring Arab states Iran deemed to be enemies. Trump seems intent on further incursions, possibly including sending American soldiers to Iran. We face the prospect of full-scale nuclear war.
As libertarians, we support a non-interventionist foreign policy as defended by Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul. Wars are justified only in case of an invasion or immediate threat of invasion, and no such invasion or threat was present in this case before Trump's drastic intervention. Further, since under our Constitution only Congress can declare war, the war lacks a constitutional basis. Trump has also betrayed his supporters, most of whom supported him because he promised to return to an America First foreign policy that would avoid entanglement in foreign wars.
The philosopher Ed Feser raises a significant point about Trump's claim that Iran's nuclear program posed a threat to America. Why should we believe that this is his aim, when he claimed last summer that he had obliterated the program ? "Last summer the United States joined in Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear program. Many of us warned that it would be difficult for the U.S. to participate without being drawn into an open-ended conflict. The Trump administration and its defenders claimed vindication when the operation ended swiftly, a purported 'one and done' mission that had painlessly accomplished what it set out to do. 'Iran's nuclear facilities have been obliterated,' said the White House, 'and suggestions otherwise are fake news.' Fast forward just eight months and an administration official was issuing the dire warning that Iran was 'probably a week away from having industrial-grade bombmaking material' - deploying thirty-year-old rhetorical shtick so hackneyed that it is a marvel anyone still believes it. Now we are at war with Iran, the cocky 'one and done' chatter suddenly thrust down the memory hole.
"The war clearly does not meet just war conditions. First, the U.S. cannot claim a just cause. President Trump claims that 'our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.' This is absurd. There is no imminent threat to the United States, and no evidence for one has been produced. Even when the U.S. killed Iran's General Soleimani in 2020 and bombed Iran last year, the Iranians did not retaliate in any serious way. The president presents a laundry list of past Iranian offenses, but he never took these to be a cause for war during his first administration, or for a wider war last year. They are obviously a pretext rather than the true casus belli.
"Nor is the aim of destroying Iran's nuclear capability a plausible cause for war. Again, we were told last year that that job had already been done, and that no one who said otherwise should be listened to. That was either a grave intelligence error or (more likely) standard Trump-style humbug. Why should we trust the administration now if we could not trust them then ? Nor, in any event, does Iran pose any nuclear threat to the United States. If it poses such a threat to Israel, Israel is perfectly capable of handling the problem on its own. Furthermore, a war with Iran could cause oil prices to spike - thus damaging the U.S. economy - and, as American military officials have been warning, will deplete U.S. munitions stockpiles, leaving us more vulnerable in other parts of the world. U.S. involvement is neither necessary nor in our interests, and for anyone who supports the president's 'America First' rhetoric, that should be all that needs to be said.
"The administration's defenders will nevertheless insist that war is justified because Iran could someday pose a threat to the U.S., or a threat to Israel that would require U.S. assistance to counter. But this is not a just cause for war. While 'preemptive war' can be justifiable under just war criteria, 'preventive war' cannot be. For example, if Iran were actually in the process of preparing an attack against America, we could justifiably preempt it with an attack of our own. But we cannot justifiably attack any country simply because it might at some point in the future decide to harm us."
As I mentioned at the start, the war is blatantly unconstitutional. Only Congress can declare war, but Trump did not even consult anyone in Congress before the attack. Some Administration lackeys claim that the Constitution allows the president to use military force even without a Congressional declaration of war, but these"justifications"are specious. Tom Woods has ably identified a number of these false claims:"There's a lot of confusion, on right and left alike, regarding the president's war powers under the Constitution. Here's an overview of the most common claims on behalf of such powers, along with replies to these claims.
'The president has the power to initiate hostilities without consulting Congress.'
Ever since the Korean War, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution - which refers to the president as the 'Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States' - has been interpreted this way. But what the framers actually meant by that clause was that once war has been declared, it was the President's responsibility as commander-in-chief to direct the war. Alexander Hamilton spoke in such terms when he said that the president, although lacking the power to declare war, would have 'the direction of war when authorized or begun.' The president acting alone was authorized only to repel sudden attacks (hence the decision to withhold from him only the power to 'declare' war, not to 'make' war, which was thought to be a necessary emergency power in case of foreign attack)...
'In the eighteenth century, a 'declaration of war' was a merely rhetorical and communicative act - a 'courtesy to the enemy' - and did not involve the initiation or authorization of hostilities. Thus in granting Congress the power to declare war, the Constitution had merely given it the power to communicate to an enemy people (as well as to neutrals and to the country's own citizens that a state of war existed; the president, on the other hand, retained the power actually to bring the United States into war by commencing military action.'
This is partly correct. In the eighteenth century a 'declaration of war' could indeed have this lesser meaning. But a review of eighteenth-century usage reveals that to 'declare war' could also mean actually to begin a war. Consider also that as the Constitution was being debated, Federalists sought to reassure skeptical anti-Federalists that the president's powers were not so expansive after all. For one thing, the Federalists said, the president lacked the power to declare war. In order for their argument to carry any weight, 'declare war' must have been taken to mean the power to initiate hostilities - for no anti-Federalist would have been appeased by 'Sure, the president can take the country to war on his own initiative, but the power to draft declaratory statements will rest with Congress!' If John Yoo's argument were correct, we should expect to see presidents in the years immediately following ratification of the Constitution taking bold military action without concerning themselves much about the will of Congress, which according to Yoo had only the power to issue declaratory statements. But as we have seen in the examples of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, the opposite was in fact the case; these early presidents were careful to defer to Congress."
Israel is Iran's bitter enemy, but it does not follow from that the America ought to be drawn into the war to help attain Israel's goals. As Ron Paul points out,"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of the US/Israeli attack that 'this combination of forces enables us to do what I have longed to do for 40 years...' But the purpose of the US military is not to fulfill the decades-old wishes of foreign leaders. There is a good reason we have a Constitution that says only Congress can declare war. Launching a military strike during negotiations will have lasting negative effects for the United States. Who would ever trust US diplomacy again if talks are used as a distraction for pre-planned attacks ? The Administration is doing its best to spin this unfolding disaster as all going according to plan, but what is the plan ? No one knows. Do they know ? Here's a plan: End this today. Return the destroyed US bases to the countries where they are located. And just come home. That is what a real 'America first"movement looks like."
Let's do everything we can to end this unconstitutional and unjust war and withdraw entirely from the Middle East!