Chapter 782

The flames of war in the Middle East had been burning for three full days.

Fighter jets roared above the Persian Gulf, and missiles tore through the night sky with long trails of exhaust, reducing targeted ports and radar stations to seas of fire.

Back home, long lines formed at gas stations. The digital price boards ticked upward by the hour, striking a nerve with every driver.

In the White House briefing room, the press secretary repeated the same rhetoric day after day:

“Everything is under control.

“Our strikes are precise, limited, and have fully achieved their intended strategic goals.

“The President is firmly in command of the situation from the Oval Office.”

Washington tried to use this tough, confident narrative to pacify domestic voters agitated by rising prices.

Until the morning of the fourth day.

An in-depth article titled *How the White House Live-Streamed Its War Plans to Me in a Group Chat* appeared on the digital front page of The Atlantic Monthly.

On the eve of the strike against Iran, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency had bypassed the Pentagon’s cumbersome secure communication protocols for the sake of convenience. They created a private group chat named “Epic Fury” on a commercial encrypted messaging app called Signal.

They used this group to share real-time updates from the front lines and coordinate operations between their departments.

On the second day of the campaign, the White House Chief of Staff suggested adding the Vice President to the group so he could stay updated with first-hand information.

The National Security Advisor, tasked with the addition, picked up his phone.

In the contact list of this extremely overworked and exhausted advisor, the Vice President’s name looked incredibly similar to that of a political journalist. With only a few letters’ difference, both sat at the very top of his recent contacts.

With a single swipe of his finger across the screen, the National Security Advisor made a catastrophic mistake.

He pulled the journalist into the “Epic Fury” group.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

After being added to the chat, the journalist didn’t say a word. He didn’t even change his profile picture or nickname.

Like an invisible ghost, he silently lurked in this chat room—a hub of the highest military secrets in the United States—for three entire days.

Over those three days, these powerful figures who controlled the world’s most formidable military and the fates of tens of millions of people chatted recklessly, acting more like a group of high schoolers playing an online video game.

The journalist attached the unedited screenshots of the group chat directly into his report.

“Taking out that radar station tomorrow at 3:00 AM. Coordinates XX, XX.” This message, allegedly from the Secretary of Defense, broadcasted unencrypted military coordinates directly over a public network.

“The Navy is moving too slow. Why haven’t the carrier-based aircraft on the USS Lincoln taken off yet? The President is rushing us!” This was a complaint from the National Security Advisor.

“Stop rushing. That old man in the White House doesn’t know a thing about the military. He just wants to see fireworks before the polls come out. This is completely blind leadership.” This was a high-ranking general blatantly complaining about the President’s arbitrary decisions.

There were even a few uncensored, high-definition strike assessment photos sent back by frontline drones.

The entire report was richly illustrated and backed by irrefutable evidence.

But even worse, after a routine arrangement for troop deployment, an unnamed senior official—perhaps to ease the tense atmosphere in the group, or perhaps offering a genuine prayer—sent a single message:

“God bless the United States.”

This was originally the most normal of patriotic slogans, but appearing at the end of a chat log filled with leaks, chaos, and private gripes, it instantly produced a highly absurd, comical effect.

The panic, disarray, and recklessness that Washington elites had tried to cover up were thus laid bare before all of America, and even the world.

Within hours, the article was translated into dozens of languages, spreading wildly across global social media networks.

The United States Government became a massive joke.

Internationally, it was a public relations disaster.

Allies in Europe privately cursed that Washington’s security systems leaked like a sieve.

Iran’s official account posted a short update on X, accompanied by a smiley face emoji:

“Thanks to the Defense Department for the advance notice in the Signal group. Our air defense systems are well prepared.”

Likes on the tweet surpassed one million within half an hour.

The domestic reaction was a catastrophic avalanche.

United States voters possessed a peculiar kind of political tolerance.

They could tolerate a ruthless President, or a hawk who bombed other countries in the name of national interests. In certain situations, they could even tolerate lies.

But they absolutely could not tolerate a stupid government.

When ordinary citizens had to cut back on household expenses just to fill a tank of gas, what did they see?

They saw the very decision-makers who had dragged the country into the quagmire of war using a free mobile app to command aircraft carriers.

They saw so-called strategists who couldn’t even tap the right name in their contact lists.

A deeply insulted fury spread across all of America.

Within forty-eight hours of the report’s publication, the incumbent President’s approval ratings plummeted off a cliff, dropping a full twelve percentage points.

The sheer magnitude of the incident’s spread across the internet exceeded everyone’s imagination.

In the ecosystem of online virality, a complex truth was often the greatest enemy.

In today’s era of information overload, the most effective way for media and platforms to seize users’ attention in the shortest time was to radically simplify—and even gamify—complex conflicts.

Thus, the entire group chat scandal was quickly framed and condensed into those three highly ironic emojis.

These three emojis instantly went viral.

Someone turned it into a meme with the caption: “When you accidentally send the nuclear launch codes to the parents’ group chat.”

Others printed it on T-shirts with the text underneath: “I lurked in the Pentagon’s group chat.”

Young people even started a trend on TikTok called the “God Bless the United States Challenge,” mimicking the frantic, buck-passing behavior of those high-ranking officials in the group, ending their videos with those three emojis.

It became a nationwide carnival.

And the White House was reduced to the laughable clown of the festivities.

The doors of the press briefing room remained tightly shut.

The sound of a teacup shattering echoed from the Oval Office.

This war, originally launched to boost election prospects, had turned into a sharp blade stabbing directly into the heart of the Democratic Party—all because of a single, absurdly misplaced keystroke.

…

Washington D.C., Capitol Hill.

In the office of the Republican National Committee, Richard Taylor looked at the headlines across major news channels, completely unable to suppress the smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

The outbreak of the group chat scandal was simply a godsend for the Republican Party.

More effective than any campaign ad, it had completely obliterated the incumbent President’s tough-guy persona.

But Taylor knew very well that merely mocking them in the media wasn’t enough.

To ensure this wound never healed, they had to employ legislative weapons.

“Submit that resolution,” Taylor ordered his assistant.

That afternoon, two bombshells simultaneously detonated across Washington’s political landscape.

In the House of Representatives, a bipartisan joint operation was underway.

Hardline Republican Representatives and several anti-war Democratic Representatives jointly introduced a draft of the War Powers Resolution.

The resolution was aimed squarely at the President, its wording extremely sharp.

The Constitution stipulated that the power to declare war rested in the hands of Congress, and Congress had not authorized a war against Iran.

Under Section 5(c) of the War Powers Act, it demanded that the President remove US Army forces from hostile operations in Iran.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, lawmakers from both parties submitted a relatively softer version.

This resolution dictated that any offensive hostilities against Iran required explicit authorization from Congress and could not be conducted unilaterally by the President on a long-term basis. However, it did not prohibit the US Army from launching self-defense strikes against imminent threats.

The moment the news broke, Washington shook.