Conor Friedersdorf: Trump owns the war in Yemen now

Last year, when Pompeo was tapped for secretary of state, Senator Jeff Merkley declared, “A vote for Mr. Pompeo is a vote for Trump’s War Cabinet, and for that reason, I will fiercely oppose his nomination.” Today, there are even more reasons to fear additional war-making, and, as ever, reasons to fear the ability of the commander in chief to resolve a conflict.

Nothing since World War II has damaged America more than ill-conceived wars of choice.

Yet the grassroots anti-war movement that filled the streets prior to the invasion of Iraq has all but disappeared, Congress seems content to allow Trump to defy even the explicit resolution it passed against war in Yemen, and Senator Lindsey Graham, who urged the United States into several foreign-policy debacles, is openly stating, “I don’t care about voting on the use of force.”

It is a perilous moment for the republic.