US and Israel’s Excessively Bold War of Aggression Against Iran

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, unprovoked. Then-US President George H. W. Bush declared “This aggression will not stand,” and proceeded to send U.S. troops to the region beginning the Persian Gulf War. The U.N. Security Council adopted resolutions urging Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. According to the NY Times, 82% of Americans supported President Bush’s war on Iraq to defend Kuwait against Iraq’s bold act of aggression. 

Now in 2026, the U.S. and Israel have embarked on their own excessively bold war of aggression against Iran, going so far as to decapitate the regime, killing its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in its bombing campaign and injuring his newly elected replacement, his son Mojtaba Khamenei. 

Contrary to assertions by the U.S. Administration, Iran is not guilty of anything other than building its war apparatus, ballistic missiles, and its efforts to build a nuclear weapon – the prerogative of any nation – and no different than the policies of the state of North Korea, which has also produced many ballistic missiles and has already achieved nuclear capability. North Korea has already developed and built many nuclear weapons. However, the US is not considering bombing North Korea.

 Iran also actually entered into negotiations with the US over its nuclear program.

The only thing Iran has done that differs from North Korea is its military and other aggressive support for its proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen. Largely that policy mostly threatens Israel, which explains why Israel would want regime change in the country, or for it to be reduced to a failed state.

However, the Iranian regime has long adopted a very adversarial posture against the US and Israel, encouraging chants of “Death to Israel, Death to America.” 

Killing Iran’s Supreme leader is nonetheless really a gross violation of the conventional rules of war and threatening to kill any subsequent leader who does not satisfy the political desires of Israel, or the US is tantamount to holding the state of Iran hostage. 

This US and Israel war of aggression on Iran is truly an illegal war. The UN Security Council has been rather tame in its addressing of this illegal war, however, with Colombia stating in a meeting that the attacks contravened the UN Charter and that no State can unilaterally claim the right to attack another. Russia and China both condemned US and Israel’s attacks on Iran, with Russia calling them “another unprovoked act of armed aggression,” according to Democracy Now!. 

This US-Israeli war on Iran is also shortsighted – with President Trump unclear about the endgame for this war, expressing different desires of popular uprising against the regime, which appears very unlikely, or that the Iranians would elect as Supreme Leader a person who is politically suitable to the US and Israel. The Iranians’ choice for Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, a hard-liner, shows that the regime is entrenched and plans to continue along the same political lines as under the previous Supreme Leader. 

Where this war will go – if Israel continues to attempt to decapitate the regime again through bombing, or if the US decides to send troops on the ground with the intent of removing the regime entirely – is up in the air. The U.S. Congress should insist on the public testimony before Congress and the American people of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on this war.

US popular support for this war is very limited, with only about 40% supporting the war, and 53% opposed to the war, according to a Quinnipiac Poll reported by PBS News. 55% stated they did not believe Iran posed an "imminent military threat" to the U.S. However, a recent AP-NORC poll found about half of U.S. adults were highly concerned that Iran's nuclear program posed a direct threat to the U.S. Obviously, those people were not thinking about North Korea and its nukes. 

Meanwhile in Israel, support for the war is strong, with 93% of Jewish-Israelis supporting the war, according to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, reported by Aljazeera. 

Embarking on an excessively bold war of aggression against a state can produce unintended consequences and we wait to see how this war plays out and whether the US and Israel will be eventually faced with a comeuppance for their excessive boldness. 

David Fine

Toledo, Ohio

X formerly Twitter: The World's Troubles 

@worldcrisis2013

It’s Time for a Constitutional Amendment Abolishing the Electoral College

The United States of America has a long history of improving its electoral system to be more democratic through constitutional amendments and making new laws. From giving Black men the right to vote with the 14th Constitutional Amendment, to giving women the right to vote with the 19th Constitutional Amendment, to having Senators be directly elected by the people with the 17th constitutional amendment, to prohibiting the Jim Crow laws of the south that made voting very difficult for Black people with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to giving 18 year olds the right to vote with the 26th constitutional amendment. The electoral college is another undemocratic relic of the founding of this country that today negates the votes of millions of Americans and greatly enhances the electoral importance of a handful of swing states. It’s time the United States evolved its democracy even more - it is time for a constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college. 

There are two relatively recent cases where the presidential candidate was the winner of the popular vote but lost the Electoral College vote, the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, and the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. While the 2000 contest was amazingly close, in the latter case, candidate Clinton won the popular vote by about 2.9 million votes. 

One argument for the Electoral College is that it benefits states with small populations, often largely rural states, including by encouraging Presidential candidates to campaign there.  However, the existence of the Senate, with its 2 members for each state, already provides these small states with enormous political clout in the U.S. Congress. And because the Electoral College system has reduced presidential candidates to fighting over what in 2024 was 7 swing states - Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin - the Electoral College system has been swaying the direction of the presidential election and its campaigns its own undemocratic way. 

What is more, electoral vote allocation to each state, which is based on the size of each state’s total Congressional delegation, is very undemocratic. In California, which has 54 electoral votes and 22.1 million registered voters (in 2023), that amounts to about 409,526 voters per electoral vote. Meanwhile South Dakota had 597,680 registered voters in 2023 and 3 electoral votes, or 199,226 voters per electoral vote. 

The Electoral College’s empowerment of small states and swing states is undemocratic overkill.

The Electoral College system also essentially disenfranchises voters who vote in a state that solidly supports the opposing party. But if there were no Electoral College, your vote counts no matter where you live. 

It is conspicuous that there are two recent cases of presidential elections where the candidate who won the popular vote lost the electoral college vote. Before 2000, the last time that occurred was in 1888. It may be given the modern demographics of the U.S. that the undemocratic character of the Electoral College is coming to the fore. 

A 2024 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 63% of Americans want to change our current electoral system for the Presidency such that “the candidate who receives the most votes wins.” 53% of Republicans or people who lean Republican said they want to keep the Electoral College system, while 80% of Democrats or people who lean Democrat want the winner of the popular vote to be elected President. 

There is a different movement by states to make our President be elected by the popular vote – the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under this system, a state that enacted this law would award its electoral votes to the winner of the total U.S. popular vote for President. This system is based on Article II of the Constitution which states that the States shall determine how they award their electoral votes for President. So far, 18 states have enacted this law, totaling 209 electoral votes. If enough states totaling 270 electoral votes enact the law, the compact will take effect. 

However, pursuing that way abandons our country’s tradition of amending the Constitution  to make our country’s electoral system more democratic. A constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college would be a decisive law change to our founding document, establishing clearly our new preference for a one-person-one-vote electoral system for the Presidency. 

The enormous challenge facing a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College is obtaining the support of two-thirds of the members of both the House and Senate and 38 states would have to ratify the amendment. Since the Republican party has won two recent Presidential elections because of the Electoral College, and because 53% of Republicans support the Electoral College system, its members may be disinclined to support such a constitutional amendment.

Given that, what our country needs is a concerted political movement with the goal of a constitutional amendment that would abolish the electoral college. Supporters of this change to our constitution and our electoral system should put forward a flood of articles and opinion pieces in the news media articulating the arguments for why the electoral college system is a relic of the undemocratic founding of this country and far too undemocratic for our modern United States.  It’s time for a constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college.

David Fine

Freelance Writer

Good articles on this topic 

It's Time to Abolish the Electoral College - Brookings