U.S. Congressman Christian Menefee found out that “Trump bombed Iran” when he saw an alert on his phone on the morning of February 28 — at the exact same time everyone else in America got the news.
“I’m a member of the United States Congress and I found out from a notification on my phone,” Menefee said at a March 1 rally for gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa. “We have a president who is skirting the Constitution, a president who would send our kids, our friends, our family to war but sure as hell wouldn’t send his.”
Trump’s decision, with no input from Congress, to join Israel in launching air strikes into Iran late last month, is cause for concern among people who think the move was illegal and rash.
The fallout was rapid. Some Houstonians have expressed concern about oil prices rising to more than $100 a barrel, which provides a good short-term boost for those in the oil and gas industry but a huge hit at the pump, where prices have already risen as much as 50 cents a gallon in some locations.
And no one knows when the war will end. Trump originally said “four to five weeks.” Since then, the President and members of his administration have issued conflicting statements on the timeline and the goals for the war, according to a report in the New York Times on Tuesday.
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, said on social media that briefings on the Iran War are closed “because Trump can’t defend this war in public,” but it appears that the President’s goals don’t involve destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program or a regime change. “So they are going to spend hundreds of billions of your taxpayer dollars, get a whole bunch of Americans killed, and a hardline regime — probably a more anti-American hardline regime — will be in charge.”
“OK, so what ARE the goals?” Murphy continued in a March 10 X post. “It seems, primarily, destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories. But the question that stumped them: what happens when you stop bombing and they restart production? They hinted at more bombing. Which is, of course, endless war.”
Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said launching missiles at Iran is a “very politically risky move, in the sense that [Trump is] not gaining much benefit or credit from weakening the Iranian regime and he’s bearing pretty much all of the cost for the negative repercussions it’s having for the U.S. economy.”
Invading Iran also immediately created unrest among Americans, who don’t understand why children, civilians and American soldiers are casualties when there’s so little to gain. However, some Houston residents held a rally on March 8 to support regime change in Iran, following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the initial strike.
The sentiment was similar when Trump invaded Venezuela in early January. Some supported the capture of “evil dictator” Nicolás Maduro but criticized Trump’s unilateral decision.
“The Trump administration, in some ways, with its success in extracting Nicolás Maduro, believes it has found a new recipe for quasi-regime change,” Jones said. “That is, it doesn’t change the regime, but it neuters it, and it makes it less of a political threat to the United States, while retaining the people who sort of run the show there, who are more willing to work with the United States. That’s a strategy they’re also attempting to replicate in Cuba these days.”
Within 24 hours of the air strikes on Iran, a shooter wearing a T-shirt with an Iranian flag design and the words “Property of Allah” opened fire outside a bar on West Sixth Street in Austin. Three people died, 15 were injured, and the FBI is investigating the incident as a possible terrorist attack. Police shot and killed the shooter, Ndiaga Diagne. Little is known about the shooter or whether the incident had anything to do with the war in Iran.
It’s clear, however, that security is a concern. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a notice March 4 advising residents in the United States and abroad about “safety protocols and resources in response to military actions in the Middle East that pose a threat to American civilians.”
“Now more than ever, Texans must remain vigilant and follow the guidance of U.S. officials as military action continues overseas,” Abbott said in a press release. “The State of Texas is actively coordinating with our federal partners to safeguard Texans abroad and at home from hostile foreign actors.”
Jones said it’s possible that terrorist acts could be carried out by Iranian surrogates across the globe, but the primary impact for the United States is that the American economy will continue to suffer, beyond rising gas prices, if the conflict extends for a long period of time.
“Trump is under increasing pressure to somehow, at a minimum, allow oil to be shipped out of the Strait of Hormuz to return to something approaching pre-conflict levels,” he said. “The President has said that this has an expiration date but nobody knows what that is, nor whether that means that the conflict will end or the more aggressive U.S. actions will end.”
“The million-dollar question, or the billion-dollar question, is when will oil tankers be able to return to the status quo without threat of Iranian attack?” he added. “Until that occurs, you’re going to have, between shipping companies and insurance companies, a real power struggle over transport. That’s what’s affecting oil prices.”
Houston’s energy executives may get a pay bonus from the rising price of oil but the benefits will be temporary, Jones said. “It also creates uncertainty for the oil and gas companies,” he said. “There are some in Houston who will benefit from the higher-priced oil, but the broader economy will take a serious hit if this continues for more than a short period of time. The U.S. economy is not designed to operate on a $100 barrel of oil.”
Members of Congress have attempted to force votes on war powers resolutions that they hope will limit U.S. military operations. Jones said Trump’s position on taking action without support from Congress is likely that there was a threat to national security and an opportunity to “decapitate a large portion of the leadership, and he took it.”
“The longer the conflict goes on, though, the weaker the President’s position becomes, vis-à-vis the War Powers Act,” Jones said. “At the end of the day, we don’t have a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court on the War Powers Act on what the President is obligated to do in terms of obtaining congressional approval for military actions.”
Politically, for Democrats like Menefee, who is in a May runoff with U.S. Congressman Al Green for the District 18 seat, the conflict in Iran won’t have much effect. District 18 is a traditionally blue seat and a Democrat is almost guaranteed to win the general election in November. Republicans in competitive midterm races in November could suffer, though, particularly if they’ve aligned themselves with Trump, Jones said.
“I think President Trump has some work to do convincing his base that this was a necessary action,” he said. “If this results in continued conflict, rising inflation, and a belief that the Trump administration has gotten the country involved in another foreign entanglement, then that can only hurt Republicans at the polls in November.”
“I think there are probably a lot of Republican elected officials out there who look at this attack, and while they may agree in theory with some of the efforts to effectively remove this longtime enemy of the United States from being an active threat, they also have to be worried about the consequences,” he continued. “I think Republicans are probably pretty worried. There isn’t much of an upside, and there’s quite a bit of downside if things go south.”