- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
On Monday, the president’s lack of a plan in Iran was outlined in stark terms in a letter to Congress obtained by CBS News officially informing lawmakers of the strikes.
“Although the United States desires a quick and enduring peace, it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary,” Trump said in the letter.
U.S. forces “remain postured to take further action… to address further threats and attacks upon the United States or its allies and partners,” he continued.
The letter was sent under the War Powers Act, a 1973 resolution requiring the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying U.S. forces if Congress has not declared war. The deployment cannot last more than 60 days without congressional approval.
Yeah, it was made at a time when the concept of a war was a months long preparation of deploying troops and moving assets into place. They didn’t anticipate just attacking countries overnight.
This was a months- or weeks-long preparation. It’s been known for a while that the US was moving aircraft carriers towards Iran. This absolutely did not happen overnight.
The BBC from 2026-02-20
Its not unusual for US air assets and carriers to be in this region in general. You might want to look at the preparations for the invasion of Iraq if you want to know what an actual preparation for a war looks like.
Right, and the massing of troops on the Ukrainian border by Russia was not a prelude to that invasion either. /s
This was in no way a bolt from the blue. People knew this was coming.
Yes. You are aware that February 20th wasn’t “months ago” right?
But January 29th was over a month ago, and you can bet that this plan started before the news noticed and reported on it.
Its OK that you said a stupid thing and then pretended you didn’t by changing the definition of what “stupid” is.
what? not them but they did add a source as early as January 29th.
I’m lost, how is that redefining stupid?
Because my argument is that this was not a well prepared war with adequate assets put into place in the region which would take months to do, much like was the case with the 2003 Iraq war. And their counter-argument to that was “look, someone dispatched a carrier to the middle east 33 days ago!”
You tell me if you think that is stupid or not.
Half of US state capitals are in the middle of states because they were created at a time when travel times were large enough that you wanted to minimise them for political centres. I’m assuming this was around the same time so maybe it even took time to get congress together?
Oh, I can scroll up two comments. 1973. Scratch that
The interstate system wasn’t completed until 1992. Speed limits were lower in the 1970s as well and vehicles were not designed to go 70+mph at that time.
No, it was in the 1970s, for which 60 days was a reasonable amount of time to get soldiers into place in order to fight a war.
Doesn’t that just mean that there is no need to bypass Congress. They can approve while the troops are getting on position.
Yes, that is the entire point of the war powers act. It allows the president to quickly deploy troops to respond to issues and provides enough time for congress to approve the declaration of war once they are ready to go. Prior to this the US president was NOT permitted to deploy troops at all until congress declared war. The War Powers Act was an EXPANSION of presidential authority.