Before the news broke last Saturday that the U.S. military had bombed Iran, I was having a rough day.

It was the day of the Portland Pride Festival. I was excited to go, all dressed up in rainbows, and while walking to Deering Oaks I slipped off a sidewalk and sprained my ankle so badly I heard the “pop” sound. That put the kibosh on my plans for the next few weeks.

I hobbled back home to ice and elevate my ankle. That night, as my wife and I were watching “The Birdcage” (because, by God, I was going to do something gay that day) I received a notification that the U.S. had dropped several 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs on a foreign country.

I won’t lie, my first thought was “this is so stupid.” Because it is stupid, and deja vu in the worst sense.

Has anyone noticed that the last three times we’ve elected a Republican president, America has ended up in another war in the Middle East? Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Do politicians really think bombs are the solution to every problem?

This was all happening at around 2:30 a.m. Netherlands time, so my poor sister, who is getting her master’s degree in crisis and security management in The Hague, woke up to 54 unread messages in the family Whatsapp chat. She must have thought someone died.

I know nobody cares about Congress’ war powers anymore but technically the president can’t unilaterally declare war. Only Congress can do that. President Trump overstepped his presidential national security powers here because Iran was in no way, shape or form an imminent threat to America. These strikes were illegal. Geez, even in 2002 Congress got off its butt to vote on the authorization for use of military force.

But God forbid our elected representatives have to take a tough vote. Or any vote at all, really. They must know this was an incredibly stupid and unpopular move. At least when the Iraq War started (and, God help me, I cannot believe I’m giving any sort of kudos to the Bush administration), the country was still very fresh off 9/11 and the administration had spent a year hyping up the war to the country via the media.

No warning or buildup this time. One minute I’m watching Nathan Lane in drag and the next we’re bombing Iran.

We had a working nuclear deal with Iran to stop the development of its nuclear program. The first Trump administration, backed by pretty much all Republicans, tore that up, not because it didn’t work but because it had President Barack Obama’s name on it.

Now what? We’re dropping bombs instead and hoping that Iran doesn’t heavily retaliate against troops that we have stationed like sitting ducks all over the Middle East? Not to mention our allies who live there?

Seriously, what has the world come to that we are hoping the Iranian government shows restraint in response? Americans have known since at least Watergate (and the savvy ones earlier than that) that our presidents lie to us. But back in the old days it used to be those lies would be hard to find. Journalists would have to work hard to dig up the info and catch them in a lie. Not anymore.

Today, President Trump posts to the internet that Iran’s nuclear program has been “completely obliterated” but then is immediately contradicted by intelligence sources in his own country and also by Israel. Journalists don’t even have to meet secret sources in parking garages to discover presidential untruthfulness! It’s just all right out there! Think of the parking garage industry, won’t you?

I’m not the family expert on war, but I’m pretty sure if two countries are launching missiles at each other that is the exact opposite of a ceasefire. It’s a continuing fire. Later, Trump started throwing around the phrase “regime change” and if anyone knows what two words are the least likely to calm a political situation down, it’s those ones.

As a technical member of the media’s commentator class, let me put my stake in the ground, here: this move was stupid, it was dangerous, it didn’t work and it’s probably going to lead to a chain reaction of bad decisions that will lead to a ton of innocent people suffering. I think we’ll be lucky if it doesn’t lead to another years-long conflagration in the Middle East.