Letter: War is Iran is result of Trump’s incompetence

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Editor,

I accuse Donald Trump of responsibility for the deaths of thousands of people, mostly civilian, some military, by abusing the powers of the presidency.

Congress and only Congress is authorized by our Constitution to declare and initiate war. Congress did not authorize the current war against Iran. (Article I, Section 8, Clause 11). That is a fact.

In the process of starting and conducting the war with Iran, he sounds like a lunatic, but I’ll concede that is a value judgment. I value competence, intelligence, reason, integrity, accountability, trustworthiness. I value a deep knowledge of history and geopolitics. I see none of these qualities in Donald Trump.

I’ll address just one: competence. Trump’s actions closed an open strait that the world depends on for economic stability in the oil market, only then to turn around and bargain for its reopening, a reopening that could well profit Iran substantially with no gain for the American people.

This is not the action of a skilled, visionary leader who is protecting the lives and well-being of the people he governs. They are the actions of a blunderer.

And who pays? Check the prices of gas. Check the hungry children whose social services are cut in order to pay between $500 million and one billion dollars a day — yes, a day — on attacking a country that posed no real danger to the American people.

Also, there are those who pay with their lives. War is not a game.

Trump is threatening to obliterate an entire civilization without the support of Congress or the American people. He sounds to me like an angry schoolchild blustering and bluffing in frustration because things aren’t working out for him due to his own ill-considered decisions.

Trump, in my opinion, does not understand how to use power wisely for the benefit of We the People who (unwisely) elected him. I see no evidence to the contrary in the war against Iran, no evidence of the wise, knowledgeable, responsible, competent use of power. I do see illegal use of power, factually illegal.

You may respectfully—respectfully—disagree in a letter to the editor. However, calling another letter writer names (lefty, Commie) is schoolyard-level discourse.

Betty Azar

Freeland