No, the U.S. has not been at war with Iran for 47 years

After the United States and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February of this year, the war’s defenders suddenly began to claim (and incessantly to repeat) that the U.S. has already been at war with Iran for 47 years. Evidently, the motivation for this newly minted talking point is to try to defuse two obvious objections to the war: that it is a war of aggression and therefore unjust, and that…