I see a bad moon a-risin'

.@elianayjohnson smartly pulls a number of past Pompeo quotes that seem to back up the idea that Admin believes it can use the '01 AUMF as legal authority for an Iran strike - something many lawmakers very much dispute: https://t.co/umqryv1Hm0

— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) June 18, 2019

If it comes to it, will McConnell even make a peep?

For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace. Jeremiah 6: 13-14.

Sure, this makes sense:

United Nations officials are “assessing the United States’ plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran,” the Jerusalem Post reported Monday, citing anonymous diplomatic sources at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

“According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives, and advisers to President Donald Trump,” the Post reported. “The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program.”

One “Western diplomat” told the Post that the bombing campaign would be “massive” but “limited to a specific target.”

The reported plans come after the Trump administration blamed Iran for attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week, citing video and photographic evidence that has been characterized as inconclusive at best and completely false at worst.

While raising concerns about the sourcing of the Post‘s report, critics raised alarm at the possibility that the Trump administration is planning to bomb Iran, noting that even a single airstrike would likely prompt a devastating military conflict in the Middle East.

“If this is true, they are even bigger lunatics than we realized,” Cenk Uygur, host of the online news show “The Young Turks,” tweeted late Monday. “If Trump starts a war with Iran, he will have kept none of his promises and created an unimaginable disaster in the Middle East.”

Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), noted that the Post‘s reporting “tracks with what Pentagon officials said is [the] most likely option last month.”

All of that is disturbing, but this is the worst:

Citing an anonymous Pentagon source, Newsweek reported last month that “if anything is likely to happen involving the [Trump administration’s] preliminary Iran options, it would involve a heavy guided missile strike campaign in an attempt to lead Tehran to the negotiation table with Washington.”

Sure, just like we did with the Japanese after Pearl Harbor.  That always works, right?

O Christ, son of the living God, have mercy upon u.
Thou that sits at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us;
And deliver us for thy Name's sake.

AMEN.

O Christ, when thou didst open thine eyes on this fair earth, the angels greeted thee as the Prince of Peace and besought us to be of good will toward one another; but thy triumph is delayed and we are weary of war.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, the very earth groans with pain as the feet of armed men march across thy mangled form.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, may the Church, whom thou didst love into life; not fail thee in her witness for the things for which thou didst live and die.

TEACH US TO DO THY HOLY WILL, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, the people who are called by thy Name are separated from each other in thought and life; still our tumults, take away our vain imaginings, and grant to thy people at this time the courage to proclaim the gospel of forgiveness, and faithfully to maintain the ministry of reconciliation.

TEACH US TO DO THY HOLY WILL, O LORD AND MASTER

O Christ, come to us in our sore need and save us;
O God, plead thine own cause and give us help, for vain is the help of man.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ of God, by thy birth in the stable, save us and help us;
By thy toil at the carpenter's bench, save us and help us;
By thy sinless life, save us and help us;
By thy cross and passion, save us and help us.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.