Over the weekend, we have been reminded why decisions about war, intelligence and military power must never be made in the shadows. We watched the United States and Israel launch coordinated military strikes on Iran in an unrestrained and unprecedented violent escalation in a region already at breaking point. This was another decision made in closed rooms by powerful men, with consequences that will be now paid for in civilian bloodshed.

This is what the modern war machine looks like: two global military forces converging with overwhelming power and acting with remarkable confidence that there will be no meaningful democratic resistance or scrutiny. If anyone believed that the era—