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By Kenneth A. Carlson ScheerPost
There are moments in public life when a metaphor — however crude — reveals more than a thousand policy papers ever could. In a 2005 Access Hollywood interview with Billy Bush, Donald Trump famously bragged that with women, when you’re powerful, “you can do anything … grab them by the pussy.” It was a statement at once vulgar and revealing: a worldview in which power erases boundaries, consequences, and accountability.
Two decades later, that same ethos appears less like locker-room bravado and more like governing doctrine.
Consider the recent decision to bomb Iran.
War, at its most defensible, requires clarity: a defined threat, a stated objective, and a credible plan for what comes next. Here, we seem to have had none of the three. Intelligence assessments appear disputed even among those with access to the most sensitive briefings. Trump’s recently resigned senior counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, wrote in his departure letter, “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation;” others insisted there was one. In a functioning system, that tension would slow the rush to action. In this one, it appears to have accelerated it.
This is not merely a disagreement over facts. It’s a pattern of decision-making; impulsive, personalized, and often untethered from institutional guardrails.
Trump has long operated with a kind of “instinctual” confidence that treats hesitation as weakness. It’s the same reflex that powered his business career of high-risk bets, aggressive posturing, and a belief that outcomes can be willed into existence. But geopolitics is certainly not real estate. There is no bankruptcy court for foreign policy. When a strike is launched in the Middle East, the consequences ripple through oil markets, shipping lanes, alliances, and, most dangerously, human lives.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow corridor through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. Disrupt it, and the global economy trembles. Secure it, and you need partners, ones who must trust your judgment.
That trust, however, is a fragile currency.
In recent years, Trump’s United States has strained relationships with traditional allies while antagonizing potential collaborators. NATO partners have been scolded. European allies were sidelined, and China treated as both adversary and, when convenient, reluctant partner. Diplomacy, once the quiet backbone of American power, has been replaced with a kind of transactional improvisation: praise one day, pressure the next.
And so we arrive at the current paradox. A unilateral military action creates a multilateral problem. The same allies who were dismissed are now needed. The same institutions that were undermined are now essential. The same global respect that once smoothed crises has eroded at precisely the moment it is most required.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this episode is not the decision itself, but the celebration and glorification of it. War imagery packaged like entertainment, clips resembling video games or sports highlights, reduces grave human consequences to spectacle. It signals a leadership culture more attuned to optics than outcomes, to performance over prudence.
There is also a deeper, more uncomfortable question: accountability.
Trump’s career has often been marked by an absence of it. Legal challenges, business controversies, sexual misconduct, political scandals — many have come and gone without the kind of reckoning that reshapes behavior. In politics, that lack of accountability can metastasize into something more dangerous: the belief that there are no limits, no consequences, no need for restraint.
History suggests otherwise.
Great powers do not fall because of a single decision. They erode incrementally, through misjudgments that weaken alliances, squander credibility, and blur the line between strength and recklessness. America’s standing in the world has long rested not just on military might, but on trust: the belief that it acts with deliberation, consistency, and a sense of responsibility to something larger than itself.
That belief is now severely under strain.
And where, in all of this, is Congress?
The Constitution is not ambiguous on matters of war. It does not vest that authority in a single individual, however confident his instincts or forceful his personality. It places it in the hands of the people’s representatives — precisely to slow down moments like this, to force deliberation where impulse might otherwise prevail.
Yet Congress, with a few notable exceptions, has been strikingly muted.
Why?
Why the reluctance to challenge a decision of such consequence? Why the deference, the careful language, the studied avoidance of confrontation? One might expect vigorous debate, hearings, demands for clarity. Instead, we often see something closer to acquiescence — a kind of institutional shrug in the face of executive overreach.
Some of this is political calculation. Some of it is fear of backlash, of primaries, of being cast as insufficiently patriotic in a moment of crisis. But whatever the cause, the effect is the same: a co-equal branch of government stepping back at precisely the moment it is most needed.
And then there is the rest of us.
Democracies do not drift into dangerous territory solely because of their leaders. They do so, in part, because their citizens allow it. Because outrage dulls into fatigue. Because complexity becomes an excuse for disengagement. Because it is easier to look away than to grapple with the uncomfortable questions of power, legality, and consequence.
Where is the public insistence on accountability? Where is the demand that taxpayer dollars, and more important, human lives, not be committed to conflict without clear justification? Why are we not, in greater numbers, raising our voices, peacefully but forcefully, about the kind of country we want to be?
Silence, too, is a form of consent.
The million dollar question facing the country is not simply whether this war on Iran was justified. It is whether a governing philosophy built on impulse over institution, bravado over strategy, and domination over discipline can sustain anything resembling a stable world order.
In the end, power without accountability is not strength. It is volatility masquerading as strength, and that may be the real meaning of “Grabbing Iran by the Pussy.” It is not merely a vulgar phrase repurposed for shock value. It is a description of a foreign policy mindset — the belief that raw power confers permission, that might excuse recklessness, and that if you are sufficiently feared, or sufficiently shameless, you can do anything you want to do.
However, on the world stage, that kind of swagger eventually collides with reality, and reality has a way of humbling even the most confident actors.
Kenneth A. Carlson
Kenneth A. Carlson is a distinguished filmmaker known for his compelling documentaries and feature films that tackle profound human stories. He directed and produced The Heart of Nuba, a feature-length documentary about Dr. Tom Catena, the sole doctor serving a million patients in Sudan’s war-torn Nuba Mountains. The film received critical acclaim, opening in over 30 U.S. cities and has been screened globally, including at the U.S. Congress, British Parliament, and the International Criminal Court. The Heart of Nuba was executive produced by Maria Shriver and is currently available on Hulu, iTunes, and Amazon.
Carlson’s recent work includes Those Who Serve, a documentary that explores the journeys of American combat veterans facing the judicial system after committing crimes, offering a raw look at the intersection of mental health and justice. His earlier credits include the award-winning documentary Amargosa, an Academy Award finalist, and Wild Bill Hollywood Maverick, which won multiple accolades, including Best Documentary from the National Board of Review.
As a director and producer for NBC, Carlson worked on the prime-time reality series Lost, which garnered strong ratings, and Meet Mister Mom. For nearly seven years, Carlson worked on America’s Most Wanted, directing and producing over 275 segments that contributed to the capture of more than 72 criminals.Currently, Carlson is directing and producing a documentary about Death Row inmate Kevin Cooper, who has been in San Quentin State Prison for over 36 years. Carlson’s photography has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe. He is a proud member of the Academy of Motion Arts Pictures and Sciences, the Directors Guild of America and The Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles.
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