Donald Trump has shown contempt for Congress, the Constitution and the rule of law in his 5-1/4 years as president. Since January his dementia has gotten worse, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convinced Trump to call off talks with Iranian officials over their nuclear operations and the U.S. and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran in the early hours of Feb. 28.
Air strikes targeted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran, and other high-ranking Iranian officials.around Tehran. But the strikes not only killed Khamenei, who was 86 and ailing; it also killed Khamenei’s wife, daughter, son-in-law, three of his grandchildren, and his daughter-in-law. Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, a 56-year-old cleric, was named the new supreme leader.
The US and Israel launched joint air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military bases. Other casualties on the first day included 175 students and faculty at a girls’ elementary school near an Iranian military base in the southern Iranian town of Minab, which was shelled. Most of the victims were girls ages 7-12, as well as first responders who were caught in a second bombing, in what Human Rights Watch said was a possible war crime. U.S. and Israeli officials at first claimed Iranian military was responsible for the attack.
The conflict escalated over six weeks, with Iran launching retaliatory attacks, and its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon fired missiles into Israel, causing significant regional conflict and evacuations. Israel declared war on Hezbollah and launched heavy air strikes in Beirut and southern Lebanon. Iran imposed a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global oil shipping, and Trump threatened that if Iran did not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by April 7, he would reopen a “bigger, and better, and stronger” assault on Iran and “a whole civilization will die, never to be brought back again.”
A few hours before the deadline, a temporary two-week ceasefire was announced to allow for negotiations in Pakistan. But the truce broke down as Israel refused to cease firing on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
On April 11, Trump sent his negotiating team, led by Vice President JD Vance, with special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to meet with the Iranian negotiators, while Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio watched a UFC fight in Miami. Vance reportedly set down numerous “red lines,” including a demand that Iran end all uranium enrichment—which Iran has a right to conduct under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons—and dismantle its major nuclear energy facilities.
“We just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms,” Vance told reporters April 12. “I think that we were quite flexible.”
Trump was trying to return Iran to the status President Barack Obama left him when Trump entered the White House in January 2017. Obama in 2015 had reached an agreement with Iran under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aiming to ensure a peaceful nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Iran restricted its uranium enrichment capabilities, reduced its stockpile of enriched uranium, and allowed for international monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018 and put sanctions back in place, resulting in Iranian stopping compliance. Trump further undermined confidence in U.S. good intentions in January 2020 when he ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, when Soleimani was traveling to meet Iraq’s prime minister.
Trump claimed on social media April 12 “the meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not.”
On April 13, after talks broke down, Trump announced the U.S. Navy would illegally blockade the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which 20% of the world’s oil used to flow every day. He threatened to intercept “every vessel in International Waters” that’s paid a toll to Iran.
Growing calls for Trump’s impeachment and removal came after the president launched into an unhinged social media tirade late Sunday, April 12.
Trump posted a lengthy attack on Pope Leo XIV, a vocal critic of the war on Iran. The president then posted an artificial intelligence-generated image depicting himself as a Jesus-like figure.
Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior has resulted in demands that he be removed from office, but that would require Republicans to stand up to the would-be king. Removal for his inability to perform the duties of his office under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution would require Vice President Vance and a majority of Trump’s Cabinet to agree to remove him, and thay group was hired for their loyalty, so that isn’t going to happen. That leaves impeachment, and there are plenty of crimes to provide the grounds for removal.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) has introduced 13 articles of impeachment against Trump, accusing him of usurping congressional war powers by waging unauthorized assaults on Iran and other nations, illegally deploying National Guard troops in US cities, unlawfully detaining and deporting citizens and immigrants on the basis of their political views, lawlessly dismantling worker- and consumer-protection agencies, and other offenses.
Bruce Fein, a constitutional scholar who served in the Reagan Justice Department, said April 13 that the “impeachment of President Donald Trump is urgent.”
“How can any decent person indulge Mr. Trump’s Hitler-like declaration that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ with our tax dollars-paid weapons?” asked Fein, referring to the US president’s genocidal threat against Iran.
Jake Johnson noted at Common Dreams that more than 85 Democrats in the Republican-controlled US House have called for Trump’s removal via the impeachment process. That leaves 133 more House members needed to take Trump to the Senate for a third attempt at impeachment. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said he would introduce legislation to establish a commission tasked with removing the president if he is deemed unfit to serve.
“This is plainly out of the realm of normal politics,” said Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, urging the White House physician to immediately evaluate Trump’s cognitive fitness. “When the president of the United States threatens to extinguish a civilization on social media, rants about combat missions with children at the Easter Egg Roll, and drops profane tirades on Easter morning, we have indisputably entered the realm of profound medical difficulty and concern.”
Robert Reich wrote in a blog post April 13 that “the president of the United States is stark-raving mad.”
“He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world. The American public is beginning to see it,” Reich continued.
Republicans might not be ready to hold their president accountable, but Democrats should take the lead, and press Republican members of Congress to do their duty for the good of the nation. — JMC
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