In refusing to first seek support of elected representatives, Mr Key is making the same mistake that US President George W Bush and Britain's Tony Blair made in 2003.
To send our military to war with a divided population will ensure that any subsequent setbacks will be worn entirely by him.
I've seen the original movie and now the sequel is being imposed on us, even though we didn't want to buy tickets.
I opposed the 2003 war for the same reasons as did the late West Virginia senator Robert Byrd. Had that debate occurred, it's possible that much of the subsequent fiasco might have been averted.
Not only were the grounds for war (alleged weapons of mass destruction) unstable, but the botched execution of the war led directly to this one.
Installation of a Shi'ite-led government by the United States created room for the sectarian conflict between Shi'ite death squads and the Sunni fighters composed of the Iraqi army Paul Bremer had hurriedly disbanded. The US bought itself a respite in the civil war they'd facilitated by paying billions to Sunnis to fight the newly-formed al-Qaeda in Iraq. Now the Sunnis, mistreated by the Shi'ite Maliki-led Iraqi government, are back with a vengeance (literally) - as Isis.
Isis' ambitions, no matter how brutally carried out, represent a renewal of the outcome of George W Bush's great strategic blunder. It's a regional conflict that can have no military solution, only a diplomatic one.
Before New Zealand sends troops to Iraq for the dubious purpose of training an Iraqi army which had been similarly and unsuccessfully trained by the US at a cost of $20 billion, we need a parliamentary debate, not a decider's fiat.
Polls claim that fewer than half of those responding support Mr Key's plans to put our young men and women in harm's way for an undefined period and unclear goals.
My question to those with war fervour is this: "Would you send your son or daughter to the fight?"
If Mr Key were serious about helping to degrade Isis in the hopes of pressing them, along with the US, towards a diplomatic solution to this latest Middle East conflict, he might call on his banker friends to do something genuinely effective.
Modern armies with heavy weapons work like armies have always done. Napoleon said an army travels on its stomach - he was describing matters of supply. That translates into the money that buys the bullets and the parts that keep those weapons functional - dry up the money and the gushers of mayhem turn into a trickle.
The money that fuels Isis is coming from somewhere and it's likely passing through some very otherwise respectable banking hands, as recent money-laundering scandals have indicated.
Instead of over-eagerly joining Americans in this latest fool's errand in Iraq, Mr Key might help steer them back to the recent articulation of President Barack Obama's foreign policy motto: "Don't do stupid stuff."
Stopping a friend from driving under the intoxicating influence of a war fever. Legend.
-Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
-John Key announced yesterday that New Zealand would send troops to Iraq.
