The Normalization of War: How Washington Shrugged as Iran Bombings Began

WBAI’s We Decide with Jenna Flanagan: As bombs fall in Iran, DC behaves as if nothing is unusual. The panel explores war normalization, Congress surrendering its powers, and risks to democracy.

The Normalization of War

Watch Politics Done Right T.V. here.

Podcasts (Video — Audio)

---

The embedded video contains solely the questions that WBAI’s We Decide’s Jenna Flanagan asked me. The entire panel discussion can be viewed here. We Decide is a joint Pacifica Affiliate WBAI production, and the We Decide: America at the Crossroads with Jenna Flanagan.

Summary

A troubling pattern has emerged in Washington: war begins, people die, and yet the machinery of American politics moves forward as if nothing extraordinary has happened. The WBAI We Decide panel examined the quiet normalization of war with Iran, Congress’s surrender of its constitutional war powers, and the frightening possibility that a manufactured crisis could threaten democratic elections.

Key Points

• The U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in Iran have already killed hundreds and struck over 130 cities, illustrating the human cost of escalation.
• Despite the severity of the conflict, political life in Washington continues almost unchanged, revealing how normalized war has become.
• Congress holds the constitutional authority to declare war, but has steadily ceded that responsibility to the executive branch.
• Trump’s shifting explanations—from regime change to negotiation—demonstrate strategic incoherence.
• A prolonged war or domestic security crisis could create political conditions that some fear might be used to justify election disruption.

War should never feel routine. When bombs fall overseas while democratic institutions sleep at home, something fundamental breaks in the political culture. A healthy democracy requires citizens and lawmakers willing to challenge executive overreach and insist that war remain the gravest decision a nation makes—not another headline that fades by morning.

---

Premium Content (Complimentary)

The most frightening moment in modern American politics may not be when a war begins. It may be when people barely notice.

During the WBAI We Decide panel discussion, the conversation centered on the unsettling normalcy surrounding the United States’ military escalation against Iran. Hundreds of people have already died in the opening days of the strikes, with more than 130 Iranian cities reportedly attacked.

Yet in Washington, daily life continues with minimal disruption. Politicians attend events, tourists walk past monuments, and the machinery of government operates as if the nation has not just entered another potentially catastrophic war.

That normalization represents a profound moral and constitutional crisis.

The U.S. Constitution deliberately places the power to declare war in Congress. The founders feared concentrated executive power and understood that war carried consequences too grave for unilateral decision-making. Article I gives Congress—not the president—the authority to decide whether the nation goes to war.

Yet modern American politics has steadily dismantled that safeguard.

Political scientists and constitutional scholars widely acknowledge that Congress has ceded increasing authority to the executive branch over the last several decades. The trend accelerated after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). That authorization allowed presidents from both parties to conduct military operations across the globe without specific congressional approval.

The result has been the normalization of permanent war.

When the president launches strikes against another country today, Congress rarely intervenes. Lawmakers may issue statements, hold hearings, or criticize tactics, but the fundamental question—whether the war should happen at all—often goes unanswered.

The Iran escalation demonstrates the consequences of that abdication.

The current conflict began without a congressional declaration of war, repeating the pattern seen in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and numerous covert operations around the world. When democratic institutions fail to assert their authority, the presidency expands its power by default.

This erosion of constitutional balance threatens more than foreign policy. It threatens democracy itself.

A wartime presidency possesses enormous authority. Military conflict reshapes the political landscape, shifts public attention, and often suppresses dissent. History repeatedly shows that governments use national security crises to justify extraordinary measures.

In the United States, the Civil War produced suspension of habeas corpus. World War I brought sweeping surveillance and repression of anti-war speech. World War II led to the internment of Japanese Americans. After 9/11, Congress passed the Patriot Act, dramatically expanding surveillance powers.

Each episode demonstrates the same lesson: war concentrates power.

That reality explains why the possibility of election disruption raises such alarm. While canceling elections outright would face immense legal barriers, crises can reshape political conditions in ways that erode democratic norms. Fear changes public expectations. Emergency powers expand. Political leaders gain latitude they would not otherwise possess.

Even the suggestion that war could create political conditions favorable to authoritarian behavior should concern every American.

Public opinion already reflects widespread skepticism about the Iran escalation. Polling has shown that only about 27 percent of Americans support the attack.

That number suggests the public instinctively understands the danger of another open-ended Middle East war.

The Iraq War offers a stark historical warning.

In 2003, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq with claims about weapons of mass destruction that later proved false. The war ultimately killed hundreds of thousands of people, destabilized the region, and cost the United States trillions of dollars.

According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University, post-9/11 wars have cost the United States over $8 trillion when including long-term veterans’ care and interest on borrowed funds.

Those costs represent political choices.

Money spent on war cannot fund healthcare, infrastructure, education, or climate mitigation. Economists often describe this dynamic as “opportunity cost.” Every bomb dropped abroad represents resources that could improve life at home.

The deeper tragedy is that Americans have grown accustomed to this tradeoff.

The normalization of war reflects a political culture shaped by decades of militarized foreign policy. Politicians speak casually about strikes and troop deployments. Cable news debates strategy like a sporting event. Citizens absorb the spectacle while the human consequences remain distant.

Democracy cannot function under those conditions.

A functioning republic demands engagement, accountability, and debate. War should provoke national reflection, not quiet acceptance.

The Iran conflict presents Americans with a stark choice. The country can continue down the path of executive militarism and permanent war, or it can reclaim democratic control over the gravest decision a nation can make.

Congress must reassert its constitutional authority. Citizens must demand transparency. And the media must challenge the normalization of war rather than treating it as routine.

History shows that democracies rarely collapse overnight. They erode gradually as institutions surrender power and citizens grow accustomed to the abnormal.

War should never feel ordinary. When it does, democracy itself stands in danger.