On Trump's Iran War

 This is the text of a letter I just sent to our local newspaper:

President Trump has attacked the sovereign nation of Iran. He insists that we are now at war with Iran, and I suppose we are thanks to his unilateral actions. Trump’s war on Iran is wrong in a great many ways. The American people don’t want it. Congress has not authorized it. It violates the international law that prohibits unprovoked wars of aggression. It is grossly immoral, for Trump’s military is killing thousands of Iranian civilians including even schoolgirls. This unnecessary, illegal, and immoral war is having significantly adverse economic effects. The stock market is down, and oil prices are up—a lot. Surely it is a “high crime” within the meaning of the Constitution’s impeachment clause for a president to begin an illegal war of aggression against a country that was no threat to us when the president attacked. Sadly, at least with regard to the presidency, that impeachment clause has become essentially a dead letter thanks to the extreme partisanship that prevails in Congress. Still, President Trump clearly committed an impeachable high crime when he attacked Iran. That the regime ruling the country he attacked was indeed a very bad regime for the Iranian people and for some of Iran’s neighbors is true. It does not, however, justify what President Trump has done. We all must do whatever we can to make it clear to those in power that we do not support this war, and we must pray for it’s rapid conclusion.

Rev. Dr. Thomas C. Sorenson