If Trump goes to war with Iran, it will be without the American people

If, as seems increasingly likely, President Trump decides he’s going to launch a massive bombing campaign against Iran, then he must prepare the citizens of the United States for the gravity of that decision in a televised speech to the nation.

The element of surprise here is not on the table. What is, is a requirement to explain why this dramatic act will be taken and what the likely risks are to American military personnel in the region and to civilians, extending from our allies to the citizens of Iran, hundreds of thousands of whom have recently risked their lives in anti-regime protests.

The cost in blood and treasure will likely be high, the latter including much of the regional oil infrastructure that supports the world’s economies.

Unlike the June 2025 “bunker-buster” B-2 bomber attacks, which severely degraded Iran’s two key underground uranium-enrichment sites at Fordow and Natanz, this strike will be anything but clinical and targeted. It will be a countrywide attack from the air and sea aimed at destroying Iran’s advanced missile capabilities and – collaterally – the fatal undermining of the theocratic regime: in other words, regime change, something which Trump just touted as “the best thing that could happen.”

But achieving regime change without boots on the ground (something which Trump is unlikely to countenance in almost any scenario) is a dicey if not improbable proposition based on recent military history and Iran’s sheer size.

Iran’s rulers, with foreknowledge that their hold on power is acutely threatened by the scale of the US buildup and this year’s nationwide protests, will put up massive opposition. Officials have been publicly confirming their intention to counterstrike on an unprecedented scale: a missile salvo that will far exceed what befell US bases in Iraq years ago and the bombardment of Israel last year.

And here’s where a public levelling with the American people – before the first USAF sorties are flown – is essential.

What will happen if the country wakes up one day in the weeks ahead with headlines blaring that an American naval vessel has been hit, severely damaged and perhaps sunk? Or that multiple US Navy surface ships have suffered the same fate. Ditto to the many US Army, Air Force and Navy/Marine bases in the region within range of Tehran’s highly accurate missiles (most of which are concealed underground and are capable of shoot-and-scoot mobile launch).

A combined air-based and sea-based bombardment will be anything but a cakewalk for the United States. The Navy has multiple ways of intercepting incoming threats. But detecting fast-moving hard-to-jam missiles that fly just feet above the waves – and then shooting them down – is an uncertain prospect.

For now, US naval firepower is giving Iran a relatively wide berth. The nuclear-powered USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier – with its crew of more than 5,500 sailors and Marines and its accompanying strike force – is on station off the coast of Oman, some 450 miles away, while a second carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, is en route and will arrive within two weeks.

It can’t be overlooked that China, critically dependent on Iranian crude oil, has been supplying Iran with its most potent anti-ship missiles. As Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, postured this week: “More dangerous than the American warship is the weapon that can send it to the bottom of the sea.”

Both American and Israeli military planners are very aware of the Iranian advanced missile threat that, extending beyond the uranium-enrichment issue, likely will be cited as a casus belli for what could transpire as the next Gulf War. Indirect talks in Geneva this week between the United States and Iran ended inconclusively, as expected, and without any clarity on Iranian missile limitations – a condition being pushed as a priority by both the United States and Israel.

Further talks may happen around the time that the USS Gerald Ford strike force is expected to arrive off Iran’s coast. If President Trump signals a move into kinetic engagement as a consequence of such a last ditch “diplomatic round,” then he should address the American people calmly and persuasively as to why he has chosen military action of the size and scope indicated by the recent mass deployment of US aircraft, ships, Patriot anti-missile systems and other hard assets into the US Central Command region.

Let there be no doubt: it could be little more than a New York minute before military muscle-flexing transforms into something different. Iran, for its part, has been conducting large-scale live-fire naval drills with cruise missiles and other weapons, briefly shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, a global oil choke point for 20 per cent of worldwide crude.

Congress has a duty and obligation to invoke the War Powers Resolution in such a scenario, as this will not be a tactical one-off strike, nothing like the recent extraction activity in Venezuela or the uranium-enrichment-site bombings last year. This will be all-out, full-scale war. And only Congress has the power to declare war: Article 1, Section 8, of the US Constitution.

Warren Getler is a former reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and the International Herald Tribune. He also served as a senior editor at Foreign Affairs magazine