Tim Balch: Democrats may have a neocon problem
Americans were interrupted two Saturdays ago by President Trump’s grand declaration that our military had bombed three of Iran’s most prolific nuclear facilities. The U.S.’s sudden punitive attack in the Middle East all but dominated the news cycle the last full week of June.
Trump and his cabinet justified these attacks as a necessary precaution as fears mounted that Iran was continuing to develop nuclear weapons. The immediate aftermath of the bombings unfolded in rapid-fire fashion: Iran answered with an alarming (yet ultimately weak) counterstrike on a U.S. base in Qatar. Trump proposed a ceasefire deal, and Israel attempted further military escalation. Each side accused the other of violating the freshly baked peace agreement (leading to Trump’s infamous on-camera f-bomb utterance).
Despite the bumpy start, at this writing, all three nations have continued to pursue the ceasefire agreement in earnest, a two-run homer for the president. Calling Iran’s bluff has given Trump a huge political win, handing his administration a much needed public boost following his unrelenting domestic mischief.
The bombing is an exception to Trump’s hard stance against the United States getting involved in overseas conflicts like it has in recent past. He even campaigned in 2024 on the promise that electing him would “turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars.” Despite this, the president’s legion of sycophants have rallied behind him and his Saturday night strike in yet another shameless display of “He did what? I guess I love it!”
While Trump gets adulation from his usual lickspittles (just flick on OAN to see what I mean), Democrats are criticizing the president for failing to consult Congress before launching the missiles. Scholars and lawmakers continue to debate whether or not Trump had the legal authority to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities without congressional approval first. Those closest to his administration insist that such consultation would have compromised a sneak-attack by the U.S. Armed Forces.
One Democrat in particular, however, has not been shy about his enthusiasm for the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. In an interview with The Washington Free Beacon days before the U.S. joined Israel’s offensive, John Fetterman (D-PA) encouraged Israel to “dismantle” its Middle-Eastern enemy, saying,“Iran… needs to be put away.” While I can confidently say that it is in no one’s security interest, not even Iran’s, for Iranian nuclear weapons to be built, I can’t help but to be taken aback by Fetterman’s rhetoric. Flirting with neoconservative ideas like hostile military takeovers in already war-torn nations is hardly what I would consider a Democratic value.
Whether or not you agree with dissenting Democrats, an important question remains: Did our military intervention effectively contain the existential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran?
One source within Trump’s own Defense Intelligence Agency found that “the U.S. set [Iran] back maybe a few months, tops.” While the White House has publicly rebuked this claim, experts like Biden-era State Department official Andrew Miller trust the intelligence report more than the White House’s press staff: “In striking Iran, President Trump needlessly dragged the United States into an ongoing conflict that caused significant loss of life, did not achieve its most important aim of permanently ending Iran’s nuclear program, and risked further destabilizing the region.”
As someone who lived through the age of seemingly never-ending U.S. conflicts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, this sudden strike on Iran raises even more questions, like: What’s really going on here? Weapons of mass destruction? Regime change innuendo? Reports of possible intelligence flubs? We’ve heard this before.
That is the kind of honest skepticism I would hope to expect from Democratic leaders. Unfortunately, today’s center-right Democrats have been fighting a losing battle in an attempt to quell accusations of war crimes by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel in its ongoing conflict with Palestine. (The Free Beacon must have skipped that topic when interviewing Fetterman.) Meanwhile, Trump, the Democrats’ arch-nemesis, proudly touts a position of “no forever wars” and castigates former U.S. leaders for getting us into Iraq and Afghanistan years ago.
But wait a minute: Isn’t that supposed to be Democrats’ philosophy? Aren’t Democrats like Fetterman supposed to be driving the anti-war bus? I guess he’s willing to pull over and offer up our proxy services when Israel calls. Or Ukraine. Or anywhere else the mole pops up out of the ground. Don’t get me wrong: The men and women fighting in these wars are more brave and noble than I could ever be. However you happen to feel about these various conflicts and who is fighting whom, can we at least agree that the more we say “yes” to bombs and proxy funding, the farther away we get from a negotiated, likely longer-lasting peace?
As a Democrat, it concerns me to hear a party compatriot like Fetterman abandon diplomacy and enthusiastically advocate the toppling of a sovereign nation. History teaches us that our aggressive meddling in the Middle East has always borne a significant consequence, whether that consequence takes shape in the immediate or more distant future. If they were smart, the Democratic Party would seize on this opportunity to condemn Fetterman’s remarks as non-representative of a party that should aspire to be an anti-war institution.
Tim Balch is a copywriter in Lansdale.
