IIWIC: On the Iran military action

(Author's note: I'm feeling inspired to write more fiction, as-if the US had a semi-competent leader at present.)

My fellow Americans, I'm here today to address some of the questions and concerns about the recent US military action in Iran, in which we participated in an effort to degrade the ability for the Iranian regime to develop and acquire nuclear weapons. I will try to answer some of the questions about this operation, so that the American people can be more informed.

Initially, let me touch on the evaluation of success of the operation. From a military perspective, the operation ran successfully: the systems performed well, the targets were hit as intended, and no US military personnel were harmed. From an efficacy perspective, the global intelligence community is still evaluating, and this will take time. At this point, we believe we have contributed to delaying Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon, but we do not know to what extent.

I will also say, for reference, that we will likely never know the exact efficacy of the operation; this is the nature of military actions where the adversary is concealing as much information as they can. Recall, Iran constructed several of the facilities in question in secret, and much of the extent of their nuclear weapons program is only known through intelligence sources. The regime undoubtedly has additional hidden facilities and resources which we are unaware of, and they have been transparently lying to the UN for decades about their program. Iran is even still a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as they race to develop and acquire nuclear weapons: this is a regime where deception and dishonestly are the norm. It will take time for the international community to assess the extent to which we have delayed this potentially catastrophic outcome.

We continue to hope that the Iranian leadership will come to understand that diverting significant resources to such a program is not in the best interests of the people there, and reach a diplomatic understanding with the rest of the world to abandon that ambition, with the requisite independent and ongoing verification of such. They have not done so in the past; every previous agreement has been violated and/or ignored, but we continue to hope for a peaceful long-term solution. Irrespective of that, I will observe that we may need to act again in the future, and at this point the general threat is not gone.

Now, I'd like to turn to the question of legality of the actions. As is established in US law and precedent, the Commander in Chief has broad authority to use the US military to further interests of national security, without external approvals in advance. I have done so in this instance. We are not at war with Iran, declared or otherwise, we have only acted to degrade their nuclear weapons development program. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that as with any hostile actions against foreign adversaries, this action could lead to a wider conflict, which ultimately could see the US at war. This is a type of risk which any hostile action carries, whether military, clandestine, diplomatic, trade-related, or otherwise. The OLC did judge this action as inside the parameters of my allowed actions, but as always, I also take full accountability for all actions as the Commander in Chief; as the saying goes, "the buck stops here".

That said, certain members of Congress have questioned the legality of these actions, for various reasons. Civil disagreement and debate is a foundational principle in the United States, and people are more than welcome to openly question the wisdom, efficacy, and/or authority of anything done by any branch of government. We have a Constitutional framework to resolve such disputes at the government level, and that will be followed.

Finally, I would like to say that we will update the American people when new information becomes available which is appropriate to be made public, but that not all information will be in this category. International relations often require a certain level of discretion, and not all questions will be answered, even if the answers are known. We have a robust information investigatory news body in the country, and they are welcome to publish additional information speculatively or via sources, but please understand that such information will be limited, and the government will not always act to clarify misinformation. We will simply continue to act in the best interests of the American people wherever possible.

I believe that the actions taken here will ultimately make America safer, which is why I ordered them. The rest will be for history to decide. Thank you all.