US President Donald Trump is facing mounting global criticism for starting Israel’s war against Iran, but he also faces a battle at home with opposition lawmakers who challenge his authority to wage the conflict.
Democrats say Republican Trump mistakenly sidelined Congress to start a war with Iran without explaining why or what the United States’ ultimate goal is. The Trump administration said it had the right to order emergency measures in “self-defense” against an “imminent threat” from Iran.
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On February 28, when the United States and Israel launched their attack on Iran, President Trump described the action as a “large-scale combat operation” rather than a war. In fact, allies of both countries codenamed the attack, which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other senior officials in Tehran, “Operation Epic Fury.”
In early March, Republican senators and one Democrat rejected the Democratic-led War Powers Resolution by a vote of 53-47. It aimed to deter further U.S. action in Iran and essentially end the war. Supporters of the resolution argued that President Trump exceeded his constitutional authority by starting the war. Article II of the U.S. Constitution authorizes the president to carry out such attacks only in self-defense in response to an imminent threat. Otherwise, the sole authority to declare war rests with Congress.
Despite having had discussions with Iran, President Trump claimed that he believed Iran was planning a pre-emptive strike and cited “legitimate defense” to justify the attack.
But since then, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, which advises both the president and the director of national intelligence on “terrorism” threats, has resigned, citing the war with Iran.
In his resignation letter published in X, Joe Kent said he could not “in good conscience” support the war. “Iran is not an immediate threat to our country, and it is clear that we started this war under pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
So who in the United States ultimately has the authority to declare war on another country?
Here’s what we know about the contents of the U.S. Constitution.
Who has the authority to declare war?
The U.S. Constitution provides for shared war powers between the President and Congress through a system of checks and balances.
Ultimately, however, Congress prevailed, a move intended to place war decisions in the hands of the people’s representatives rather than a single individual.
Under Article 1, members of the United States Congress have the sole power to:
Formally “declare war” or grant authorization for such a declaration “Marks and Authorization for Retaliation” – i.e., authorize U.S. civilian actors to seize enemy vessels Develop regulations for the seizure of enemy property on land and water Provide for the army, navy, and associated “militia” Control “power of the purse,” meaning that only members of Congress can authorize war funding
These powers were made clear when the U.S. Congress issued the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) three days after the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Lawmakers passed a similar resolution before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
However, under Article 2, the president has the authority as commander in chief of the military and can decide how to proceed with the war. Additionally, in the event of a sudden or imminent attack on the United States, the President of the United States can direct a military response in self-defense without Congressional approval.
Have U.S. presidents always followed the Constitution?
not much. U.S. presidents have a long tradition of circumventing the Constitution’s legal guardrails and bypassing Congress to pursue military action overseas.
In 1973, during the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution with broad bipartisan support after news broke that President Richard Nixon had authorized military action to expand the conflict into Cambodia without seeking permission from members of Congress. As now, a debate erupted over who had the authority to authorize military action overseas, leading to the vote.
The resolution passed requires the president to deploy U.S. troops only with the green light from Congress or in case of an emergency, such as an attack on the United States or its assets.
Even in that case, the president must notify Congress within 48 hours of the start of military action and cannot continue deploying troops for more than 60 days without Congressional approval.
Former President Joe Biden is a recent example of a president who did not seek Congressional approval on war-related issues. Observers claimed he effectively joined Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip without the approval of parliamentarians by rushing arms shipments to Israel after the outbreak of war in October 2023.
Brian Finucane, a former U.S. State Department war powers adviser and International Crisis Group analyst, argued in a 2024 report that Congress did not do much to prevent Biden from doing so because of broad bipartisan support for Israel. But the report warned that the Biden administration is setting a precedent for future wars that could have negative consequences.
When President Trump bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 22 during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, he did notify Congress of the attack the next day. A secret conference to explain the decision to Congress was postponed from June 24 to June 26, prompting widespread criticism from Democratic lawmakers.
Is President Trump justified in launching an attack on Iran now?
Many analysts don’t believe he is. Mr. Finucane’s prediction appears to be correct, as President Trump’s war on Iran amounts to a “dramatic usurpation of Congress’s war powers” not seen in decades, he said in a report this month, just days after the first US-Israeli attack on Iran.
Trump administration officials also issued conflicting statements about the objectives of the attack, ranging from “regime change” to continuing Iran’s nuclear program and halting its ability to manufacture ballistic missiles. Trump also claimed he wanted to “liberate” the Iranian people from a government he called brutal. Tehran is accused of massacring thousands of anti-government protesters in January.
In a Feb. 28 speech after ordering the start of the war, President Trump said the United States decided to attack because Washington knew that Israel would attack Iran and that Iran would retaliate against allies of both countries. This was later questioned by Joe Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, who resigned from his post, stating that “Iran was not an imminent threat to our country.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the move by the US and Israel. On February 28, President Guterres warned that attacks across the region and Iranian retaliation would “undermine international peace and security” and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Analysts also said the US has no legitimate reason to attack Iran.
“The administration has not articulated any plausible case for how an attack on Iran could be reconciled with Article II, Section 4, as an exercise of lawful self-defense in response to an armed attack or the imminent threat of an armed attack,” Finucane recently wrote on The Contrarian website.
“President Trump’s attack on Iran therefore contradicts and undermines not only the U.S. constitutional order and apportionment of war powers, but also the international legal order that the United States helped establish in the wake of two world wars and the Holocaust.”
What does international law say about attacks on Iran by the US and Israel?
Rights experts said the US government was violating international law in attacking Iran.
As an example, the United States and Israel are accused of targeting civilian infrastructure, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians. At the start of the war, a girls’ elementary school near an army base in the southern city of Minab was bombed, sparking worldwide outrage. The United States said it was investigating the incident, but a preliminary U.S. military investigation confirmed what independent experts said: A U.S. Tomahawk missile struck a school, killing more than 160 people, most of them children.
On March 7, one week after the start of the war, the United States launched an airstrike on a desalination plant on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. The attack, which the Iranian government branded a “clear crime” against civilians, cut off fresh water supplies to 30 surrounding villages.
Similarly, the US has been accused of torpedoing an Iranian warship full of sailors while it was in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka. At least 87 people were killed and several others injured. Critics argued that the U.S. submarine that fired on the ship ignored the Geneva Convention, which requires survivors of such attacks to be provided with aid.
Some experts say the U.S. attack on enemy ships is justified, while others argue that targeting enemy ships in international waters far from Iran could violate the United Nations Charter against Aggression.
Iran has also been accused of violating international law with retaliatory attacks on infrastructure and U.S. military assets in neighboring Gulf states.
Can Democrats stop President Trump from continuing the war with Iran?
Several polls show that most Americans do not support a war between the United States and Iran. Estimates put the growing cost of the war at about $11 billion for the first six days alone. Overall, the U.S. is expected to lose about $1 billion a day after that. Oil prices have already soared to more than $100 per barrel, and the damage to the global economy could be severe.
But after a Democratic-led resolution to curb Trump’s war powers was defeated in the Senate last week, and with the White House refusing to provide a clear timeline for the conflict, analysts said opposition lawmakers will need to find other ways to counter Trump.
One suggestion is that lawmakers are exercising “power of the purse” by delaying approval of additional war funding.
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, a key figure in efforts to resolve the war, told US news site Lever that blocking funding was the only way to end the war.
“This war is costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion a day and burning up critical munitions,” Khanna said in a statement this week. “This type of spending is unsustainable, and Americans are already feeling the effects with rising gas prices and growing economic uncertainty.”
Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both houses of Congress. But the majority in the Senate is 53-47, meaning it is unlikely to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to pass many types of legislation in the Senate. That would require at least seven Democratic votes, and Democrats could use these rules to block additional war spending.
This approach has been successful in the past, including during the Vietnam War. Along with the War Powers Resolution, the Democratic-led Congress passed two bills in 1970 and 1973 that prohibited the use of federal funds for American combat operations in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, hampering Republican President Nixon’s war effort. Congress also limited the number of U.S. military personnel allowed to serve in Vietnam.
Similar funding cuts were passed in 1982, when Congress used tactics to prevent the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government, and in 1993, when the U.S. military presence in Somalia ended.
