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war powers act
If Congress Can No Longer Stop an Unauthorized War, Whose Job Is It Now?
For half a century, federal courts have waved away the war-powers question as a “political question” the elected branches would settle among themselves. Late June proved they cannot. That is precisely why the Supreme Court must finally take the case.
Jun 27, 2026
For one day in late June, it looked as though the Constitution had won. For the first time in the 53-year life of the War Powers Resolution, both chambers of Congress voted to order a president to remove US forces from a war he had never asked them to authorize. The House carried the measure on June 3. The Senate followed on June 23. After more than half a century of the legislature flinching from its own authority, here at last was a majority in both houses saying, on the record, that the war in Iran was not theirs and would not be waged in their name.
It lasted about 24 hours.
The resolution that passed was a concurrent resolution—a vehicle that, by design, never reaches the president’s desk and carries no force of law. The measure with teeth, the one that would have required his signature, reached the Senate floor the very next day, June 24. By then the president had summoned Senate Republicans to a closed-door lunch, turned it into a confrontation over the war, and sent at least one wavering senator to a same-day White House briefing. When the binding resolution was called, it failed. Two senators who had voted to constrain the war on Tuesday declined to do so on Wednesday. A war-powers majority had been assembled and dismantled inside a single news cycle—not by argument on the merits, but by a luncheon and a briefing.
Set aside, for a moment, the conduct of any one senator. The deeper fact is structural, and it should trouble anyone who believes the decision to go to war belongs to the people through their representatives. If Congress can pass a war-powers resolution and then refuse to enforce it within a day, the question is no longer whether Congress will check this president. The question is whether it can—and what is supposed to happen when it cannot.
A Congress that can be moved from a war-powers majority to a war-powers minority overnight is not a Congress that is merely choosing not to act. It is a Congress that has shown it cannot make its own action stick.
The administration has not been coy about its view. The war in Iran began in late February without a congressional vote. The Resolution’s 60-day clock expired on May 1, and the president answered with a letter declaring the hostilities “terminated” even as a naval blockade remained in force. His secretary of state told a White House briefing that the War Powers Act is “unconstitutional, 100%,” adding that the administration honors it only as a courtesy, to preserve good relations with Congress. The vice president had earlier dismissed the statute as “a fake and unconstitutional law.” Strip away the “show,” and one proposition remains: that a duly enacted federal law binds the executive only when, and only so far as, the executive cares to be bound. That is not a war-powers position. It is a position about whether laws are laws.
Nor did the threats subside. Even after a memorandum of understanding was signed in mid-June to extend the ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the president warned that he would “bomb the hell out of” Iran if it failed to comply—a threat of force in open tension with the very agreement he had just concluded. Days earlier, discussing Iran’s nuclear stockpile, he reached for “the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again,” the unmistakable register of nuclear menace from the leader of the only nation ever to have used such weapons against a civilian population. As I have argued previously in these pages, language like this is not loose talk. It is the rhetorical scaffolding of a war the public was never asked to approve.
Here is where the courts enter—or rather, where they have declined to. For 50 years, whenever members of Congress have asked federal judges to enforce the war-powers framework, the judiciary has turned them away, most often by invoking the “political question” doctrine: the notion that disputes between the political branches over war are committed to those branches to resolve, not to courts. That doctrine has always rested on an empirical assumption—that the political process can correct itself, that Congress has tools enough to defend its own prerogatives if only it chooses to use them.
June 23 and 24 are the clearest refutation of that assumption in a generation. The political branches did not resolve this. They demonstrated, in real time and on camera, that the institutional machinery the doctrine relies upon no longer holds under pressure. A Congress that can be moved from a war-powers majority to a war-powers minority overnight is not a Congress that is merely choosing not to act. It is a Congress that has shown it cannot make its own action stick. When the premise of a doctrine collapses, the doctrine built upon it should not survive untouched.
So whose job is it now? The answer the Constitution supplies, once the political branches have failed, points to the one branch that has spent half a century looking away: the judiciary. The Supreme Court has never squarely decided whether a president may wage sustained, unauthorized hostilities past the 60-day deadline in defiance of an explicit statute. It has had reasons, prudential and real, to avoid the question. Those reasons weaken by the week. When an administration pronounces a federal statute void from the podium, complies only as “good relations,” and a Congress that votes to end the war cannot keep the vote alive for a day, the case for judicial abstention has run out. The framework Justice Robert Jackson set down in Youngstown—that a president acts at the “lowest ebb” of his power when he moves against the expressed will of Congress—was written for precisely this situation. It is waiting to be applied.
None of this is simple. Standing is a genuine hurdle; the path to the court runs most plausibly through members of Congress, or a chamber, suing in their institutional capacity rather than through any single citizen. The political-question doctrine will be raised again. But “political question” was always a choice the courts made, not a command the Constitution issued—and the conditions that once made the choice defensible no longer hold. A controversy is ripe for decision when it is concrete and when withholding review inflicts real harm. A war waged in the country’s name without its consent; a statute openly nullified; a legislature unable to enforce its own majority: If that is not ripe, nothing is. And Iran, for all its starkness, is not the only theater in which force has lately preceded authorization rather than followed it.
The Framers placed the war power in Article I—the first article, the people’s article—for a reason that does not age. They had watched kings march nations into war on their own word, and they meant to make that impossible here. The power “to declare War” was given to Congress alone. The War Powers Act did not invent that allocation; it merely tried to make it work in an age of undeclared wars. If Congress can no longer make it work, and the courts will not look, then the war power has quietly migrated to wherever the president happens to be standing when he decides to use it. That is the exact outcome the Constitution was written to prevent.
The stalemate is not an accident of partisanship; it has hardened into a feature of the system, and this president has learned to exploit it with unusual skill. Breaking stalemates between the political branches is what a court of last resort exists to do. It is time for the Supreme Court to take up the question it has avoided for 50 years—and to say, before the next war begins without a vote, who in this country actually holds the power to start one.
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'Ceasefire in Name Only': Israel Bombs Beirut With Approval From Trump Administration
"The Israeli government continues to drop US-made bombs in Lebanon," said one Democratic lawmaker. "Congress can and must put an end to the violence in the region."
May 07, 2026
The Israeli military on Wednesday bombed the suburbs of the Lebanese capital for the first time since a ceasefire agreement was announced in mid-April by US President Donald Trump, whose administration reportedly coordinated with Israel on the latest strike.
"This is a ceasefire in name only," US Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) wrote in response to the bombing, which Israel said killed a top Hezbollah commander. "Israel needs to adhere to the ceasefire and work in good faith toward a permanent end to the larger war with Iran and Lebanon."
According to the United Nations, at least 380 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the ceasefire agreement took effect. Trump announced a three-week extension of the ceasefire deal on April 23.
The target of Wednesday's strike on Beirut's southern suburbs "appeared to be a 10-story building in the Haret Hreik neighborhood next to a school," The Washington Post reported, citing satellite imagery and open-source material. "Photos of the aftermath showed half the building leveled and excavator machines digging beneath the rubble."
The Israeli military also bombed the southern Lebanese town of Zelaya on Wednesday, killing at least four people, including two women and an elderly man, Lebanon's Ministry of Health said.
Early Thursday, the Israeli military issued new displacement orders for southern Lebanon, instructing the residents of Deir al-Zahrani, Bafroa, and Habush to leave their homes.
The Wednesday attack on Beirut's suburbs, according to an unnamed Israeli official cited by the country's broadcasting authority, was "carried out in coordination with the US."
"This would be a clear violation of the War Powers Act 8(c)—further strengthening the case for Congress to urgently pass Rep. Rashida Tlaib's (D-Mich.) Lebanon War Powers Resolution," said Erik Sperling, executive director of the US-based advocacy group Just Foreign Policy.
Tlaib unveiled her legislation in late March, demanding the "removal of all US Armed Forces’ participation in unauthorized hostilities in Lebanon, including involvement in targeting assistance and intelligence sharing for the Israeli airstrikes and ground invasion."
"We must act now to stop this campaign of ethnic cleansing," Tlaib said at the time.
US Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who co-led the Lebanon resolution with Tlaib, said Wednesday that "the unaccountable, unlawful, inhumane campaign of death and displacement continues."
"The Israeli government continues to drop US-made bombs in Lebanon. More than 2,600 people have died, and over 8,350 people are injured," said Ramirez. "Congress can and must put an end to the violence in the region. We must Block the Bombs and pass the Lebanon War Power Resolution."
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Khanna, Massie Push to Block Trump's Ability to Strike Iran Without Congressional Consent
"A war with Iran would be catastrophic," Rep. Ro Khanna said. "Congress must do its job and stop this march to war."
Feb 19, 2026
As US President Donald Trump appears poised to launch a massive war with Iran, Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie say they will attempt to force the House to vote on a war powers resolution next week, after Congress returns from recess.
"Trump officials say there's a 90% chance of strikes on Iran. He can’t without Congress," Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote Wednesday night on social media following reports of a massive US military mobilization toward the Middle East.
He said that he and Massie (R-Ky.) "have a War Powers Resolution to debate and vote on... before putting US troops in harm’s way," adding, "I will make a motion to discharge to force a vote on it next week."
It’s not the first time that the progressive and the libertarian have teamed up in an attempt to place a check on the White House, including Trump’s ability to attack Iran.
In June, days after Trump launched strikes against three Iranian nuclear sites amid the nation's 12-day war with Israel, the pair cosponsored a resolution along with 75 other representatives to require congressional approval for any further military actions. However, the bill stalled out after a ceasefire between Iran and Israel was reached.
This time, however, a full-scale war appears much more likely.
"Trump is positioning two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships, and hundreds of fighter jets to prepare for a possible war with Iran," Khanna said.
"A war with Iran would be catastrophic," he went on. "Iran is a complex society of 90 million people with significant air defenses and military capabilities. We also have 30,000 to 40,000 US troops in the region who could be at risk of retaliation. Congress must do its job and stop this march to war."
Massie emphasized that Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the explicit authority "to declare war."
Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the president is allowed to deploy military force without authorization from Congress, but only in narrow circumstances—when there is a "national emergency created by an attack upon the United States."
In this case, however, Massie said, "There’s no imminent threat from Iran to invoke [this exception in] the 1973 War Powers Act."
A discharge petition, which would force a war powers resolution onto the floor for a vote even without approval from the Republican majority, would require 218 members of the House.
It would not be the first war powers resolution to reach a floor vote. Multiple resolutions to rein in Trump's ability to strike boats in the Caribbean and to wage war on Venezuela have come up just short in recent months.
In January, weeks after Trump’s operation to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and commandeer the nation’s oil, a resolution requiring him to seek congressional approval for US military presence there failed by a vote of 215-215, just one yes vote short of passing in the House, where a deadlock means legislation cannot be approved. Massie was joined by one other Republican, Don Bacon (R-Neb.), in crossing party lines to vote with Democrats.
Another prominent Republican critic of Trump's warmongering, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), had also joined in voting for previous war powers resolutions. However, she resigned from her seat in early January amid a falling out with Trump.
If all 213 Democrats vote in favor of a discharge petition, it's unclear which three Republicans might join Massie and Bacon to pass it. To take effect, the bill would also have to pass the GOP-controlled Senate.
Congress is currently on recess and will not return until Monday, by which time a war may already have begun. However, Khanna said the vote is still important.
"If Trump is preparing to bomb Iran soon and others call for troops on the ground, Congress must get on the record, so Americans know where their representatives stand," he said.
Polls suggest that a war with Iran is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people. A YouGov survey from early February found that 48% said they strongly or somewhat opposed military action in Iran, compared with just 28% who supported it and 24% who weren’t sure.
"Like the votes before the Iraq War, this could be one of the most consequential votes in the history of Congress," Khanna said. "Are we going to stop another endless dumb foreign war? Or will the neoconservatives mislead us once again?"
The Trump administration has provided little in the way of a public justification for a new war with Iran, while Democratic leadership has been criticized for failing to forcefully stand against it.
"The American public hasn't even gotten a semblance of a rationale from Trump as to why we have to attack Iran now," said Nathan Thompson, a senior policy adviser at Just Foreign Policy. "Congress needs to call up a war powers vote and do its job immediately to stop this disaster from unfolding."
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Ilhan Omar Slams Latest Trump Attack on Venezuelan Boat as 'Egregious Violation'
"There is NO legal justification," the progressive congresswoman said. "It risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes."
Sep 16, 2025
US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Tuesday condemned the Trump administration's attack the previous day on a second boat allegedly transporting drugs off the coast of Venezuela as blatantly illegal, highlighting her introduction last week of a war powers resolution in a bid to stop the aggression.
President Donald Trump announced Monday that the US destroyed what he said was a boat used by Venezuelan drug gangs, killing three people in what one Amnesty International campaigner called "an extrajudicial execution."
The strike followed a September 2 US attack on another alleged drug-running boat that killed 11 people, which Omar (D-Minn.) called a "lawless and reckless" action.
Responding to Monday's attack, Omar said on the social media site X that the Trump administration "is once again using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law."
"There is NO legal justification," she said of the attack. "It risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes. I have a war powers resolution to fight back."
Introduced last Thursday, the measure aims to stop the US attacks, which coincide with Trump's deployment of a small armada of warships off the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, a country that has endured to more than a century of US meddling in its affairs.
"All of us should agree that the separation of powers is crucial to our democracy, and that only Congress has the power to declare war," Omar said at the time.
The War Powers Act of 1973—enacted during the Nixon administration at the tail end of the US war on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos—empowers Congress to check the president’s war-making authority. The law requires the president to report any military action to Congress within 48 hours and mandates that lawmakers must approve troop deployments after 60 days.
Also last week, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) led a letter signed by two dozen Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asserting that the Trump administration offered “no legitimate justification” for the first boat strike.
Omar's condemnation of the US attacks followed Monday's announcement by US Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) of separate resolutions to strip Omar of her committee assignments and, in the case of Mace's measure, censure the congresswoman after she reportedly shared a video highlighting assassinated far-right firebrand Charlie Kirk's prolific bigotry.
Trump also attacked Omar on Monday, calling her a "disgraceful person," a "loser," and "disgusting."
Omar is no stranger to censure efforts, which critics say are largely fueled by Islamophobia—and haven't just come from Republicans. In 2019, she was falsely accused of antisemitism by leaders of her own party and was the subject of an anti-hate speech resolution passed by House lawmakers after she remarked about the indisputable financial ties the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and members of Congress.
In February 2023, Omar was ousted from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for years-old comments that allegedly referenced antisemitic tropes.
Last year, Congressman Don Bacon (R-Neb.) introduced a censure resolution after Omar said of Jewish students at Columbia University, "We should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they're pro-genocide or anti-genocide."
The measure failed to pass, as did another put forth earlier last year by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) after she mistranslated remarks Omar made in Somali.
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Another 'Extrajudicial Execution' as US Bombs Second Alleged Venezuelan Drug Boat
"There is no legal justification for this military strike," said one Amnesty International campaigner. "The US must be held accountable."
Sep 15, 2025
President Donald Trump said Monday that the US carried out a fresh strike on what he said was a boat used by Venezuelan drug gangs, killing three people in what one human rights campaigner called another "extrajudicial execution."
"This morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the [US Southern Command] area of responsibility," Trump said on his Truth Social network. "The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the US."
"These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to US National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital US Interests," the Republican president continued. "The Strike resulted in three male terrorists killed in action. No US Forces were harmed in this Strike."
"BE WARNED—IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!" Trump added. "The illicit activities by these cartels have wrought DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES ON AMERICAN COMMUNITIES FOR DECADES, killing millions of American Citizens. NO LONGER. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!"
US President Trump just announced that a second drug smuggling boat from Venezuela was hit by a US airstrike in the Caribbean, killing 3 people on board the boat.#Venezuela pic.twitter.com/dO34gYr9GZ
— CNW (@ConflictsW) September 15, 2025
Responding to arguments by legal experts and Venezuelan officials that the September 2 strike was illegal, Trump said Sunday that "what's illegal are the drugs that were on the boat... and the fact that 300 million people died last year from drugs."
Only 62 million people died in the entire world of all causes last year, making Trump's claim impossibly false.
Monday's attack followed the September 2 bombing of a vessel allegedly transporting cocaine off the Venezuelan coast, a strike that killed 11 people. Venezuelan officials say none of the 11 men were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, as claimed by Trump.
On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Last month, the president reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat drug cartels abroad, sparking fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US attacks, invasions, occupations, and other interventions since the issuance of the dubious Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
The Intercept's Nick Turse reported Monday that the Trump administration's recently rebranded Department of War "is thwarting congressional oversight" of the September 2 attack.
“I’m incredibly disturbed by this new reporting that the Trump administration launched multiple strikes on the boat off Venezuela,” Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said in response to Turse's reporting. “They didn’t even bother to seek congressional authorization, bragged about these killings—and teased more to come.”
Common Dreams reported last week that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) introduced a war powers resolution seeking to restrain Trump from conducting attacks in the Caribbean.
Also last week, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) led a letter signed by two dozen Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asserting that the Trump administration offered "no legitimate justification" for the first boat strike.
It's not just congressional Democrats who have decried Trump's September 2 attack. Last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that "the recent drone attack on a small speedboat over 2,000 miles from our shore without identification of the occupants or the content of the boat is in no way part of a declared war, and defies our longstanding Coast Guard rules of engagement."
“What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial," Paul later added.
Paul also mirrored Democratic lawmakers' questioning of Trump's narrative that the boat bombed on September 2 was heading to the United States.
Echoing congressional critics, Daphne Eviatar, director of Amnesty International's Security With Human Rights program, said of Monday's attack, "Today, President Trump claimed his administration carried out another lethal strike against a boat in the Caribbean."
"This is an extrajudicial execution, which is murder," Eviatar added. "There is no legal justification for this military strike. The US must be held accountable."
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'Congress Can't Sit Back': Anti-War Groups Call on Senate to Invoke War Powers Act in Friday Vote
More than 41,000 people have signed a petition calling on Congress to invoke the War Powers Act to limit Trump's ability to strike Iran without congressional authorization.
Jun 27, 2025
The U.S. Senate will vote Friday evening on whether to invoke the War Powers Act, limiting President Donald Trump's ability to launch a war with Iran.
With the vote looming, anti-war groups are turning up the pressure, urging their senators to reassert Congress's ability to check the president's power after he unilaterally inserted the U.S. into Israel's war with Iran by launching airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last weekend.
More than 41,000 people have signed a petition launched by the progressive group MoveOn Civic Action, which calls on Congress to vote for the resolutions introduced in both the House and Senate in recent weeks.
"By launching strikes on Iran without congressional approval, Trump endangered civilians in the U.S. and around the world, while dragging our country closer to another endless war," said MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich. "Congress has a responsibility to the people who elected them to check this abuse of power and take urgent action to prevent the U.S. from being pulled into another deadly and costly conflict."
The vote on the Senate resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), will take place Friday at 6:00 pm Eastern time. A vote on the House resolution introduced by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has not yet been scheduled.
The War Powers resolution, which would require Trump to receive congressional approval for future strikes on Iran, has overwhelming support from Senate Democrats. However, according to reporting from Punchbowl News Friday, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), a notorious pro-Israel hawk, is expected to vote no.
If all other Democrats vote yes, they'd still need five Republicans to join them. The libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has also signaled his support for the resolution. But the rest, including seven who voted for a similar resolution in 2020, have remained tight-lipped about Friday's vote.
The majority of Americans, 56%, said they disapproved of Trump's weekend strikes against Iran in a YouGov poll published Tuesday. They are even more strongly opposed to further escalations, with 84% saying in a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed Monday that they were worried about growing conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
On Monday, Trump announced that a cease-fire had been brokered between Israel and Iran. But with the two countries accusing one another of violating the truce, doubt remains about whether it will hold.
Cavan Kharrazian, a senior policy advisor for the group Demand Progress, said that uncertainty is all the more reason Congress must assert itself to stop further escalations from the United States.
"In just days, we've gone from a supposed two-week decision window to immediate U.S. airstrikes, a brief cease-fire, Israel and Iran trading fire again, and now another fragile pause," Kharrazian said. "We strongly support diplomatic efforts to end this crisis—but Congress can't sit back and hope for the best while the risk of U.S. involvement in unauthorized hostilities remains."
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President Trump’s War on Iran Was Illegal and Unconstitutional—Congress Must Act Like It
Without a change, we will only continue to see presidents launch more and larger wars whenever and wherever they want and for whatever reason they choose.
Jun 26, 2025
As a fragile cease-fire takes hold between Israel, Iran, and the United States, many questions remain.
With Iran’s nuclear program unquestionably damaged but likely not fully destroyed, will the Iranian government now race toward a bomb? Having repeatedly broken recent cease-fires in Lebanon and Gaza, will Prime Minister Netanyahu honor this one? And after having twice taken direct military action against Iran, will President Donald Trump pursue the peace he claims to seek or once again choose war?
Meanwhile, Congress is currently debating whether and how to rein in Trump's war making power, with votes possible by the end of this week. There are two competing House bills, one bipartisan War Powers Resolution (WPR) sponsored by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Tom Massie (R-Ky.), and another by Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Jim Himes (D-Conn.). Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced a Senate version, and that one is likely to get a vote by Friday.
If one person alone decides when the nation goes to war, wars will inevitably be about one person’s grievances, politics, and personal interests.
Time will tell whether these measures will pass or have any effect on current events, but on one point, there is absolute certainty. President Trump’s war on Iran was illegal and unconstitutional.
When it comes to who has the legal authority to declare war, the Constitution is unequivocal. The power to declare war rests solely with Congress. Once authorized, the president is the commander-in-chief, but the title does not confer on him the authority to decide where, when, or against whom the country goes to war, simply to oversee the prosecution of wars once they have been authorized.
For the Constitution’s framers, these weren’t hypothetical arguments, and we don’t have to guess at their reasoning or intention. They lived in an age when wars were fought at the whims of monarchs, sometimes for lofty imperial goals but sometimes for petty personal grievances. Indeed their own revolution had been based, in part, over frustration with the massive taxation required to pay down King George’s war debts. Instead, they sought to create a system in which the people who would pay the war’s costs in blood and treasure would decide whether or not their nation goes to war.
To accomplish this, they put this awesome power in the branch of government most accountable to the people, Congress. They did so with the hope and intention that this would make going to war difficult. If one person alone decides when the nation goes to war, wars will inevitably be about one person’s grievances, politics, and personal interests. By requiring Congress to publicly come together and navigate their myriad differences, the hope was that consensus would be difficult to obtain and wars would thus only be launched when there was a clear, overwhelming, and genuine national interest in doing so.
And of course, if members of Congress failed to exercise their authority responsibly, they’d regularly face elections where they could be replaced.
It was and remains an inspiring decision to impose a massive check on the most awesome power of the state. Unfortunately, as Donald Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran reminds us, this system of war powers is deeply broken and prone to abuse.
For starters, Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States that required military action in self-defense. To the extent any such claims are being made, they are based on a hypothetical future threat that must be prevented, namely an Iranian nuclear weapon. Such claims, of course, are a disturbing echo of the Iraq War, and even then they amount to arguments for preventative wars, not genuine preemption of an imminent threat. While this may seem like a small distinction, it is in fact a massive one.
In a letter to Congress justifying his war-making, President Trump makes no claim that the Iranian government was preparing an attack against the United States that he needed to preempt. Instead, he argues he was simply acting to “protect United States citizens at home and abroad” as well as stating repeatedly he is acting to “advance vital United States national interests.” Nowhere in this justification or his public remarks does the president make any claim that he is acting to defend against an imminent attack. Rather, he is simply claiming the unilateral right to both decide what is in the national interest and then to use military force in pursuit of that interest. Even if one agrees with his definition of interests and belief that military force will achieve them (something of which this author and others are deeply skeptical), it does not negate the need for constitutionally required authorization before resorting to war.
Similarly, the president’s claim in the letter that he was acting “in collective self-defense of our ally, Israel” is not an invocation of any actual legal authority to wage war. What Trump is attempting here is a sleight of hand in which the president’s right to use military force in self-defense of the United States is, without any legal authority, bestowed upon another country. Sadly, Trump may have learned this trick from Joe Biden who absurdly also made this claim to justify his use of military force in Somalia. To be clear, international law does allow for using military force in collective self-defense, but international law is not a replacement for the Constitution’s requirements of congressional authority to go to war. For the U.S. president to send the U.S. military into war, they ultimately need authority under U.S. law, and U.S. law simply does not provide existing authority for using military force in defense of Israel.
Of course, Trump isn’t the first president to try to unilaterally expand his authority to wage war. After the disastrous U.S. experience in Vietnam in which the mission grew from a small advisory effort in support of the French and then South Vietnamese forces to hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops fighting a deadly and ultimately unsuccessful major war, Congress attempted to get ahead of this growing problem and place limits on presidents in the 1973 War Powers Act. While perhaps no law in history has been more misunderstood or misinterpreted, WPR reaffirmed Congress’ sole constitutional right to declare war and created a framework to force presidents to remove the military from situations in which they may become engaged in wars Congress had not authorized.
The goal was simple: If it seemed like the U.S. might end up in war, the WPR required the president to remove forces to prevent that from happening. It also gave Congress fast-track procedures to consider legislation to force the president to comply. Indeed, in the coming days Congress may consider this with the various versions offered in both the House and Senate. This is exactly what happened in 2020 following Trump’s assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassam Soleimani, when Congress passed a resolution blocking further military action against Iran.
The fate of that resolution, however, also revealed the fundamental flaws in the current system. Trump ultimately vetoed that 2020 WPR legislation, and no doubt will do so again if Congress passes such legislation in the coming days. Thus, without a two-thirds supermajority, the system creates the conditions for presidential impunity when violating the Constitution’s separation of powers. This is, of course, exactly the opposite of what the framers intended. Their goal was that a majority of both houses of Congress would be required to go to war, not that a super majority of Congress would be required to prevent a president from going to war. The current system is thus an absurd perversion of the plain text and obvious intention of the Constitution.
Thankfully, some in Congress are trying to repair this dangerous situation. Bipartisan groups in both the House and Senate have recently introduced legislation to return the balance of power to Congress, and by extension to the American public, preventing the kind of unilateral war-making President Trump has repeatedly engaged in. This legislation likely faces long odds, but such reforms are deeply necessary in the long run. Without a change, we will only continue to see presidents launch more and larger wars whenever and wherever they want and for whatever reason they choose.
While the worst-case scenarios of a spiraling, escalating war may (or may not) have been avoided in this case, there is no guarantee that future presidential war-making will be so limited. Thankfully, the Constitution was drafted to prevent just such disasters. The only question left is if we’ll continue to allow presidents to violate it and act like kings.
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'I Haven't Taken a Look at It': Jeffries Blows Off Resolution to Limit Trump's Iran War
"Who is going to primary this guy?" said one critic. "Please. I am begging someone to step up."
Jun 24, 2025
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries shocked war opponents Monday when he told reporters he had not looked at a bipartisan resolution that would require congressional approval for military action against Iran.
As U.S. President Donald Trump has beat the drums for war with Iran in recent weeks, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced a resolution to invoke the War Powers Act of 1973, which would require the president to seek congressional approval before taking military action.
The resolution to put a check on Trump's war-making powers in Iran had 59 Democratic co-sponsors. A group of 12 House Democrats—all military veterans, most of whom had not been initial co-sponsors—also voiced their support for the resolution in a letter on Monday. A similar resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), has gained traction in the Senate.
In a press conference Monday, Jeffries (D-N.Y.) agreed that the Trump administration should "have to come before Congress and explain their justification" for its "offensive military strike" against Iran over the weekend. But when a reporter asked whether he supported Khanna and Massie's resolution, Jeffries brushed off the question.
"I haven't taken a look at it," Jeffries said, before quickly moving to the next question.
The resolution was released six days before Jeffries' comment and is less than 400 words long.
Conflict with Iran is extraordinarily unpopular with the public. A YouGov poll conducted Sunday—hours after Trump announced strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities—found that 85% of American adults, including 92% of Democrats, did not want the U.S. to be at war with Iran.
Jeffries was already facing criticism for what many viewed as a weak response to Trump's push to war. His failure to address the War Powers proposal only fueled that anger.
"Look at my opposition party dawg," wrote independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who posted the viral clip on social media.
Jeffries' answer quickly drew more angry rebukes from war critics.
"Hey, not like this is an urgent matter with lives on the line. He'll get to it," quipped Reason Magazine commentator Zach Weissmueller.
Krystal Ball, the left-wing co-host of the Breaking Points podcast, was dismayed, calling for new Democratic leadership.
"Who is going to primary this guy?" Ball tweeted. "Please. I am begging someone to step up."
She noted that even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—one of the Democratic Party's staunchest defenders of Israel—had also voiced support for using the War Powers Act following Trump's strikes.
Jeffries' response also reignited scrutiny on his support from the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has been one of the strongest advocates for Trump's aggressive actions against Iran.
Commenting on the video, the group Track AIPAC, which monitors donations by pro-Israel lobbyists, shared a graphic showing the large sums Jeffries has received from such groups.
According to OpenSecrets, Jeffries was the top recipient of money from pro-Israel lobbying groups in the House of Representatives during the 2023-24 election cycle, receiving more than $1.1 million. AIPAC was also Jeffries' top contributor.
As Michael Arria wrote for Mondoweiss Monday, many of Jeffries' comments have closely mirrored AIPAC's talking points, including reiterating that U.S. support for Israel is "ironclad" and his claim that Iran "poses a grave threat to the entire free world."
"Many prominent Democrats who have expressed concerns about Trump’s process have effectively endorsed his rationale," Arria wrote.
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Trump Is Trying to Unconstitutionally Bomb His Way Back to Popularity
With approval ratings underwater, why not follow Bush’s advice and launch a “little war”? What could possibly go wrong?
Jun 23, 2025
In the modern era, it was probably George W. Bush who first said it out loud and then acted on it: When you’re unpopular and losing politically, just start a little war that’s easily winnable and you’ll be back on top.
As he told his biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, in 1999 about his plans for an Iraq war as a strategy to get himself reelected in 2004:
One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of (Kuwait), and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed I want to get passed, and I'm going to have a successful presidency.
It worked for Bush, although history hasn’t been kind to him as a result. Donald Trump’s second presidency, meanwhile, has been an unmitigated disaster, both in real terms and politically as his approval ratings have slipped so far underwater they’re in late-years Richard Nixon territory:
- Inflation is up, and the tariffs aren’t bringing jobs home.
- Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires bill is in trouble.
- The GOP war on our schools and libraries is creating a huge backlash.
- Women are dying—and furious—because of red state abortion bans.
- Armed thugs are kidnapping people off the streets without warrants or due process.
- Those same immigration raids are causing food to rot in our fields.
- Trump’s destruction of USAID has already killed an estimated 300,000 poor children and handed Africa and parts of Asia to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
- Despite Elon Musk’s claims, the Epstein files are still hidden.
- Nobody except billionaires wants Trump to sell off our public lands.
- The housing crisis is worsening.
- Trump’s cuts to Social Security and Medicare are creating havoc for people trying to sign up.
- Putin has made a fool of Trump as he continues his murderous campaign against Ukraine.
- Musk now knows every penny you’ve ever earned and every drug you’ve ever taken.
- Republicans are on a national purge of voter rolls in blue cities in red states.
- Between 5 and 10 million people showed up to protest Trump’s fascist policies.
So, why not follow Bush’s advice and launch a “little war”? It worked for Ronald Reagan with Grenada and Bush with Iraq: What could possibly go wrong?
After all, when America goes to war—be it Korea in June of 1950, Vietnam in April of 1965, Kosovo in January of 1999, or Afghanistan and Iraq in October of 2001 and March of 2003 respectively—Americans always rally around the flag, the military, and the commander in chief.
At least initially.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to get an American president to attack Iran so his jeremiad wouldn’t be a lonely one since he tried to strong-arm Bill Clinton in the 1990s; he finally found one who’d go along with him.
Which is not to say the Iranian regime doesn’t deserve some serious comeuppance.
On more than one occasion I’ve been in Israel when Iranian-funded suicide bombers killed innocent civilians, and their “Death to the Jews” rhetoric has gotten really old. Not to mention Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s having looted Iran to the tune of $95 billion, an amount that makes kleptocrats like Putin and Trump seem like pikers.
But does any of that make this America’s war?
And, if it is, shouldn’t Congress have a say in the decision like our Constitution requires? Article 1, Section 8 says, after all:
The Congress shall have Power… To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.
There isn’t a single mention in Article II, which covers the presidency, of that person having any decision-making power over war and peace; as commander-in-chief he’s required to follow the dictates—or at least permissions—of Congress.
Which is why Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Clinton, and both Bushes all went to Congress to get authorization for dropping bombs on other countries, and President Obama used Bush’s bipartisan congressional Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) to legitimize his attacks on Libya and elsewhere.
Trump has no such authority, and he’s not even claiming authorization via the AUMF; unlike every previous president he hasn’t provided a legal rationalization for the attack.
The War Powers Act requires Congress get at least a 48-hour notice. Trump did none of that; he’s daring Congress to challenge his authority to act unilaterally, and all about a handful of Republicans have already rolled over.
As Democratic Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois said, echoing AOC’s call for Trump’s impeachment because of his failure to follow the law:
No president has the authority to bomb another country that does not pose an imminent threat to the U.S. without the approval of Congress.
Congressmen Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) agreed, saying, respectively:
“While President Trump’s decision may prove just, it’s hard to conceive a rationale that’s Constitutional,” and “This is not Constitutional.”
It’s also important to point out that President Obama had worked out a 2015 deal with Iran (the JCPOA) and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as Germany and the European Union.
Iran upheld the deal, even maintaining it for a year after Trump pulled the U.S. out and it collapsed. They did away with 97% of their enriched uranium (from 10,000 kilograms to a mere 300), dismantled two-thirds of their centrifuges, capped their enrichment at 3.67% (the level needed to fuel nuclear power plants), allowed International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors unlimited access to all their nuclear sites, and committed to maintaining the system for 25 years.
The deal eliminated, in large part, Netanyahu’s rationalization for his perennial call for other nations to bomb Iran; odds are he’s the one who convinced Trump to tear the JCPOA up. Had Trump not gone along with him, today’s situation would be vastly different.
By defying the law—the Constitution, the War Powers Act, and the AUMF—and simply bombing Iran without any consultation whatsoever, he’s also pulling a dictator stunt,
But here we are. With almost 50,000 U.S. troops within easy range of Iranian missiles. And to crank the fury quotient in Iran up to 11, Trump himself is now explicitly calling for a Bush-Iraq-style regime change.
One pro-bombing argument that Trump’s war hawks have made is that we’re aiding Ukraine against Russia, so why shouldn’t we aid Israel? Both, after all, are democracies that largely share what have come to be known as “American values.” And, in fact, we’ve been providing Ukraine with pretty much the same type of support as Israel (at least prior to the Trump presidency) including weaponry, advice, and intelligence, albeit on a much smaller scale.
But America hasn’t bombed Russia like we just did Iran; by directly bombing those nuclear facilities, we’ve destroyed any rationalization that we’re merely “helping an ally.”
And Iran is highlighting that, as is their ally, Russia.
Former Russian President Medvedev (and Putin right-hand-man), noting that these attacks will just make the Iranian leadership more popular with their own rally-around-the-flag effect, just tweeted an ominous threat:
A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.
Keep in mind, Iran’s supplied Putin’s army with thousands of deadly drones for use in Ukraine. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced yesterday that today he’ll be in Moscow to “consult with each other and coordinate our positions.”
As I noted in the Saturday Report, Putin had advised Trump against this move, in no small part because Russia has over 600 nuclear scientists in Iran and has made billions building one Iranian nuclear reactor with contracts on the books to build seven or eight more. The two countries are allies, and Iran is—more than any other country—helping Russian oil exports get around U.S. and U.N. sanctions.
While it’s unlikely this will rupture Trump’s lapdog-like slavish adoration of and deference to Putin—there’s clearly something going on there that goes back years if not decades—if Russia or North Korea supplies Iran with tactical nukes it could signal a major change in the world balance of power.
And don’t forget that China is also an explicit ally of both nations and has a military that is second only to ours (and quickly overtaking us).
That could end up looking like the allies-axis conflict of the 1940s, and we all know how bloody that ended up.
On the other hand, when Trump killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on January 3, 2020, Iran’s response was relatively mild. Five days later, they threw a few missiles into the al-Asad air base in Iraq, injuring over 100 U.S. soldiers. Trump downplayed their wounds, calling the traumatic brain injuries “a few headaches,” and the issue pretty much died.
Odds are Trump’s betting history will repeat itself, and he may well be right; Iran’s Supreme Leader would probably rather luxuriate in the billions he’s stolen from his people than confront our military—along with Israel’s—head-on. Not to mention Trump’s tendency to TACO—cutting and running—when the heat gets turned up.
The wild card here will be the advice Putin gives Khamenei’s envoy in their meetings today, and the type of military support Russia may provide. Khamenei’s been generous with his Shahed attack drones, which have helped Putin turn the war in Ukraine to his favor; will Russia return the obligation of help to Iran in their time of need?
Meanwhile, Trump continues to shoot himself—and America and the free world—in the foot, as he just put conspiracy nut Kari Lake in charge of Voice of America and she just gutted our Farsi-language Iranian service, Radio Farda. As The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board wrote in a recent op-ed, on Lake’s watch:
Radio Farda has cut freelancers, furloughed staff, and allowed podcasts and social-media accounts to lapse. It has also cut back on broadcasts through Kuwaiti transmitters that supported short-wave radio broadcasts in Iran. This old technology remains a critical source of information in times of crisis or social upheaval, such as today.
The initial gutting of Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the various U.S. foreign-language services was almost certainly a gift to Putin and Xi, as the Russian- and Chinese-language services were among the first to go. But Lake has taken her neofascist commission a large step further, gutting pro-democracy programming in dozens of languages worldwide.
Iran is also believed to have “sleeper cells” in the United States and other countries they could activate to commit acts of terror on the scale of 9/11. Unfortunately, Trump has replaced the intelligence professionals who ran our domestic anti-terrorism agency with a hard-core right-wing MAGA loyalist who’s only 22 years old, has no intelligence or military experience, and was most recently a lawn boy and grocery store assistant.
But that’s merely stupid, putting loyalty above competence, something we’ve come to expect from Trump and can see vividly in almost every one of his most important appointments; at least it’s not unconstitutional.
Both the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Act—written in response to the excesses and lies that led to and made a bloody mess of Vietnam—require the president to consult Congress before commencing hostilities against any other nation. While Bush’s AUMF gave Trump a loophole, he didn’t even try to invoke it, meaning that he’s gone way beyond any actual legal authority he has, which is why AOC is calling for his impeachment.
To compound Trump’s apparent war crime, he informed several Republican members of Congress of the impending attack on Iran but failed to notify their Democratic colleagues, including those in the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” that U.S. law (50 U.S.C. § 3093) requires be notified about any “significant anticipated intelligence activity” including the use of military force.
By letting Republicans in but freezing out Democrats at the highest level (with the most secure top-secret clearances and proven discretion), Trump has politicized his attack on Iran, making it seem even more than before like what Bush was trying to accomplish back in the early 2000s when his approval numbers were underwater and 9/11 essentially rescued him.
By defying the law—the Constitution, the War Powers Act, and the AUMF—and simply bombing Iran without any consultation whatsoever, he’s also pulling a dictator stunt, essentially saying, “I, alone, will decide what I can and cannot do.” That’s an impeachable offense under the Constitution.
And it’s even possible that Trump is hoping for something similar to 9/11; his gutting of our intelligence agencies, including firing over 1,200 CIA employees, sure makes it look that way.
So, what do we do?
A bipartisan group of Senators and House members, during the last year of the Biden administration, introduced the National Security Powers Act that would restore the Constitution’s requirement for congressional approval for acts of war.
Although the proverbial horse has already fled the barn, now it’s vital that we close the door before Trump takes Congress’ and the public’s acquiesce as permission for escalation, repeating the mistakes of Vietnam, et al. We must demand Congress pass it, along with requiring a legal justification from Trump for this act of war.
The number for the congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121. Tag, you’re it!
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Fury Grows Over Democratic Complacency in Face of Looming War of Choice in Iran
"It's embarrassing that some problematic far-right figures are speaking out more forcefully against direct military action than the so-called leaders of the opposition," said the executive director of Our Revolution.
Jun 19, 2025
With just a relative handful of Democratic lawmakers backing legislation that would compel President Donald Trump to obtain congressional approval for an attack on Iran and many more Democrats voicing support for Israel as it kills hundreds of Iranian civilians while continuing its annihilation of Gaza, progressives on Thursday implored voters to pressure their representatives to oppose yet another U.S. war of choice.
While Trump has reportedly approved plans to join a war that fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is meant to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons that every U.S. administration this century—including his own—says Tehran is not trying to build, Democratic pushback against possible war has largely been limited to three pieces of proposed legislation that would require lawmakers' approval for military action, as mandated by the War Powers Resolution of 1973, also known as the War Powers Act.
"If your argument is that Trump is an authoritarian danger to democracy but sure, let's follow him into another war, you are a complete fraud."
Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt) No War With Iran Act, which has just seven co-sponsors, would prohibit use of federal funds for an attack on Iran. A separate Senate bill introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) would also block Trump from waging war on Iran absent congressional approval, while a similar measure put forth in the House by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California has drawn the support of 15 Democratic colleagues.
Meanwhile, under relentless pressure from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—which spent over $100 million in the 2024 election cycle on largely successful efforts to oust progressive opponents of Israel's war on Gaza—dozens of congressional Democrats have voiced support for Israel's unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran, which has killed or wounded around 2,000 people and prompted Iranian retaliation that has left hundreds of Israelis dead or injured.
On Wednesday, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) introduced a resolution praising and expressing support for Israel's so-called "preemptive" war on Iran. Sherman's measure is backed by more than a dozen Republican lawmakers and a pair of Democrats, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.). Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) have both also publicly backed Israel.
"This is now defining for the Democratic Party," Khanna asserted in the face of his party's ambivalence. "Are we going to criticize the offensive weapons for Netanyahu and the blank check? Are we going to stand up with clarity against the strikes on Iran? Are we going to actually be the party of peace, or are we going to be just another party of war?"
On @chrislhayes.bsky.social, I called on @schumer.senate.gov to support @kaine.senate.gov, @sanders.senate.gov, Rep. Massie & my resolution opposing a war in Iran. This is a defining moment for our party where too many blundered in supporting the Iraq war.Now we need to be clear — no war in Iran.
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— Ro Khanna (@rokhanna.bsky.social) June 18, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Other Democrats, including but by no means limited to Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio)—who have collectively raked in more than $2.2 million in campaign cash from the pro-Israel lobby, according to Track AIPAC—have voiced support for attacking Iran.
"The Democratic Party has an AIPAC problem," Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese told Common Dreams Thursday. "Too many of its leaders seem more afraid of crossing a powerful lobbying group than they are of dragging the U.S. into another costly regime change war."
"It's embarrassing that some problematic far-right figures are speaking out more forcefully against direct military action than the so-called leaders of the opposition," he added. "Much like [former President] Joe Biden's indefensible handling of the genocide in Gaza, this is yet another example of Democrats squandering their credibility with young, progressive, and independent-leaning voters."
RootsAction national director Norman Solomon—author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death—told Common Dreams Thursday that "current members of Congress, in effect, belong to a war party or a peace party—and it has nothing to do with whether they have a 'D' or an 'R' after their names."
"Many Democrats in Congress—who were silent while Trump killed the Obama-era nuclear deal during his first term and then President Biden refused to revive it—are now trying to score partisan points against Trump without clearly and emphatically opposing any U.S. direct attack on Iran, let alone opposing Israel's immense war crime of launching an aggressive war on Iran," he added.
Like Solomon, progressive economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs noted that "there are warmongers in both parties, and peacemakers in both parties."
"An antiwar coalition is possible but needs to be bipartisan," he told Common Dreams.
Some of the most vocal opponents of a U.S. attack on Iran—a country that hasn't started a war since the mid-19th century when it was the Persian Empire, but has endured U.S. regime change and destabilization efforts for 70 years—have been Iranian Americans.
"There is deep frustration and disappointment across our community with the Democratic Party's overall reluctance to meet the moment with the urgency and moral clarity it demands," Isabella Javidan, communications manager at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), told Common Dreams Thursday.
"While some lawmakers are thankfully backing War Powers Resolutions to prevent unauthorized U.S. military involvement, too many Democrats are either silent or hedging, despite an illegal and catastrophic assault that has already killed hundreds of civilians in Iran and dragged the U.S. to the brink of war," Javidan continued.
"This isn't just about diplomacy or restraint, it's also about preventing history from repeating itself," Javidan added. "The U.S. has been here before, and we know what happens when political leaders fail to speak out against reckless, one-sided escalations. Many in our community are alarmed that, despite the human toll, there's an absence of strong Democratic leadership publicly opposing the warpath being laid out by Netanyahu and endorsed by some in Congress."
Referring to the recent U.S. intelligence assessment which, like several before it, concluded that Iran is not seeking nukes, Branko Marcetic lamented in a Jacobin article published Wednesday that "pro-war officials, both Democrat and Republican, have simply decided to pretend this never happened."
In a separate piece for Responsible Statecraft, Marcetic noted that even progressive Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon referenced "Iran's nuclear ambitions."
Ironically, much of Trump's 2016 foreign policy platform involved excoriating the Bush administration's lies about Iraq's nonexistent quest for weapons of mass destruction.
"Trump is now a fingernail's length away from doing exactly what he bashed Bush for doing in order to kickstart his political ascent," Marcetic wrote for Jacobin.
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former senior foreign policy adviser to Sanders, said on social media that "any Democrat who can't stand up and speak out now against the Trump-Netanyahu regime change war should not even consider running in 2028. You're not who this country needs."
"Seriously," Duss continued, "if your argument is that Trump is an authoritarian danger to democracy but sure, let's follow him into another war, you are a complete fraud."
"Any Democrat who can't stand up and speak out now against the Trump-Netanyahu regime change war should not even consider running in 2028."
Duss quipped, "I'll be accepting apologies from everyone who insisted we needed to welcome Bill Kristol in our coalition," referring to the "never-Trump" neoconservative co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, who has been an Iran hawk for decades.
There's a politically expedient motivator for eschewing war on Iran—it's unpopular among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. An Economist/YouGov poll published earlier this week found that 60% of all respondents oppose U.S. involvement in the war, while just 16% supported military action and 24% were unsure. A slim majority of 2024 Trump voters don't want war with Iran and slightly more Republican respondents than Democrats support U.S. negotiations with Iran.
Astonishing that only 16% of Americans think the US should join Israel’s war on Iran but so few Democrats are speaking out against it. The gaping disconnect between Dem politicians and the Dem base we saw on Gaza continues to cripple effective opposition.
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— Abu Aardvark’s Ghost (@abuaardvark.bsky.social) June 18, 2025 at 9:11 AM
"What this all boils down to," said Solomon, "is the imperative for all of us to demand that the U.S. not engage in any military action against Iran and insist that Israel halt its war of aggression—and that the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran for a new nuclear deal be resumed and completed for an agreement."
"As constituents, we need to let all elected officials know that pursuit of peace is essential—and anything less is an insane push toward nuclear annihilation," he added.
Disclosure: The author of this article recently served as the co-chair of San Francisco Berniecrats, an Our Revolution affiliate.
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