Don’t get me wrong, Mr. President — we would love nothing more than to see the radical Iranian regime toppled. Ever since the 1979 revolution, that government has been a menace to global security. But recent events give many of us pause.

You have given us no reason to trust you on matters of truth or judgment. Throughout your career in business and politics, much of what you’ve said publicly — whether in speeches or on your phone — has been demonstrably false or misleading. That track record tempers any enthusiasm you might want us to feel now.

Beyond introducing the U.S. Olympic Men’s hockey team during your record-setting State of the Union, that speech was marked by distortions — claims of a post-Biden economic boom, misrepresentations of gasoline prices, broad assertions about undocumented immigrants as criminals, and the patently false idea that foreign countries are paying for tariffs.

So how can we trust your explanation for “why now” regarding this weekend’s military operations against Iran? You’ve given us every reason to suspect political motives — to divert attention from the ongoing fallout over the Epstein files, a sluggish economy, and sagging poll numbers. And now we have learned that on a betting platform, which involves Donald Trump Jr made a killing on the killing.

And let’s not forget: your earlier military action in Venezuela — an unprecedented strike that resulted in the capture and removal of President Nicolás Maduro — produced no meaningful bump in public approval. Early polling suggests Americans are not united behind what you call necessary force. 

If what you’re proposing has the promise of escalating into years of conflict, billions spent, lives lost, and chaos in Iran, what strategic clarity have you offered to assure the public that such sacrifice won’t be in vain?

Just saying the US has toppled the government and now it is up to the Iran people rings hollow when they have no way to organize when you have cut off the internet to that country and took down Voice of America in Iran. Any insurgency under these conditions against the couple of hundred of thousands heavily armed members of the Revolutionary Guard will be a sure death sentence for many.

We deserve better than rhetoric. We deserve clear criteria for victory, solid evidence of necessity, regime change (which has rarely worked for us) and honest answers from leadership we can trust.