Cato Experts React to U.S. Attacks on Iran

Jon Hoffman, Brandan P. Buck, and Katherine Thompson

President Donald Trump says the U.S. has begun “major combat operations” in Iran after Israel also said it ⁠had launched missile attacks against the country. 

In response, Cato foreign policy experts have released the following statements: 

Jon Hoffman, Research Fellow: 

Trump’s decision to bomb Iran is indefensible. This was not about preempting an imminent threat—it was a strategically misguided power play, with no discernible endgame. Vague objectives, inflated threat perceptions, and regime-change fantasies threaten to pull the United States into a costly war that Americans don’t want. The United States is barreling toward another Middle East crisis of its own making.

Brandan Buck, Research Fellow: 

The President’s use of military force in Iran risks drawing the United States into yet another open-ended conflict in the Middle East, with no plausible casus belli, no congressional authorization, and no clear conception of victory. This action contradicts the administration’s own national security strategy, which explicitly sought to shift American attention away from decades of “fruitless ‘nation-building’ wars.” Instead, the President is repeating the same pattern of strategic self-deceit that has ensnared his predecessors—promising limited action while inviting prolonged conflict.

Katherine Thompson, Senior Research Fellow: 

The President’s use of offensive military force against Iran is a clear and blatant overreach of executive authority. Under the Constitution, the power to take the nation to war belongs to the United States Congress. The President’s decision puts U.S. forces and bases in the region in the crosshairs of retaliation. Defending American personnel—and Israel—against sustained attacks beyond what we saw during Operation Midnight Hammer is poised to strain already finite U.S. defensive resources. War is not abstract. It costs American blood and treasure. The Founders placed the power to initiate it in Congress precisely to ensure those costs are confronted and debated before the country walks into battle.