David Frum Is Wrong About the Democrats and Iran 

Three weeks ago, President Donald Trump directed the American military to bomb Iran without an imminent threat to the United States, a declaration of war, or a clear explanation of what victory would look like. The Pentagon, with characteristic modesty, is now preparing to send Congress a $200 billion bill to continue Trump’s war of choice, which has roiled global energy markets and shows no signs of achieving the shifting aims administration officials have offhandedly declared, from regime change to degrading Iran’s ballistic missile capacity and ending their nuclear program. David Frum, the Never Trumper and George W. Bush speechwriter credited with coining the phrase “Axis of Evil,” argues in The Atlantic that Democrats should write that check because the alternative—“parking a jet in midair”—is worse. His case is that an adult Congress, providing conditional funding, can exercise constructive oversight and leverage over a toddler president’s conduct of the war.  

Because some Republicans may not be on board, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson could need Democratic votes when the $200 billion supplemental hits the floor of their chambers. But Frum’s theory requires believing that Trump, who has impounded congressionally appropriated funds and ignored statutes he doesn’t like, will suddenly honor Democratic conditions on a war he launched without consulting Congress in the first place. As for oversight, if Democrats win a chamber in the midterms, they will have subpoena power, whether or not they vote to fund Trump’s war.  

Frum is not wrong about what responsible engagement would look like under normal circumstances: Congress would demand a formal war resolution, clear objectives, and—given his record of inciting soldiers to act unlawfully—the resignation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as conditions of funding. These are the minimum requirements of constitutional governance. But none will be met. Trump will not submit to congressional authority, which he has spent years skirting, and he will not fire a defense secretary whose chief qualifications are his loyalty to the president and contempt for the rule of law.  

Moreover, Frum implies that once a president commits forces to a conflict, Congress is obligated to make it work. But if that principle holds, Congress can permanently abdicate questions of war and peace. Every future president will understand that once the bombs are falling, the responsible adults will manufacture a reason to get on board. If Trump announces tomorrow that he is invading Greenland, should Congress approve a supplemental? Were Trump to start moving troops toward Frum’s native Toronto and seizing parts of Ontario (unlikely but not utterly inconceivable), would Congress be similarly obliged to make it work? 

No amount of leverage for Congressional Democrats could make this administration competent enough to succeed. The war started amid negotiations, led by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, in which Iran had reportedly already offered concessions that went beyond the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. Six months before the war began, the State Department fired its oil and gas experts who could have been crucial in mitigating the ongoing economic fallout associated with Iran’s Strait of Hormuz lockdown. The administration had also gutted the National Security Council staff and made Marco Rubio both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, collapsing the institutional checks that exist precisely to prevent the kind of strategic incoherence now on display.  

The strongest argument Frum leaves on the table requires a clear response: What about Iran’s nuclear program? After an American retreat, Iran, battered and humiliated, would likely pursue a nuclear weapon. This poses a serious risk, but it’s not insurmountable. Israel has shown both the ability and the willingness to target Iranian nuclear sites. If Iran advances toward acquiring a weapon, the Israelis can act to defend themselves. Furthermore, if Israel cannot complete the operation, targeted American strikes—authorized by Congress, with clear objectives, and executed by capable personnel—might well do so.  

Democrats who heed Frum’s advice and help Republicans fund Trump’s war will yoke themselves to its tremendous unpopularity. The cautionary tale is 2002, when Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and a significant minority of the Democratic caucus voted to authorize President George W. Bush to use force against Iraq, telling themselves and their constituents they were handing him a negotiating tool. Barack Obama, then a state senator with no vote to cast, called it a “dumb war.” Six years later, he was president, and they were not. The Democrats, now tempted to find a similar middle ground on Iran, should consider what their party’s compromise with Bush on Iraq cost. It’s hard to present oneself as the alternative to a war you voted to finance.  

Frum was not a bystander to the last major American misadventure in the Middle East. As a White House speechwriter in the run-up to the Iraq War, he helped construct the intellectual and rhetorical case it. (He later claimed that he had fallen into “groupthink” over Iraq.) During Trump’s first term, Frum wrote in The Atlantic that an American war with Iran without allies, justification, or a plan would be disastrous. He was right. The war he predicted would be a catastrophe is unfolding as he predicted. Asking Democrats to own it will not make it less of one.  

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