February 28, 2026
By now you know that President Trump has launched a massive military campaign in Iran. Trump said today that a large number of Iran’s leadership – and even– Iran’s supreme leader was killed.
But can Trump do this without congress? First — let’s be very clear – the United States constitution gives the power to declare war to congress. Not the president of the United States. Period. However – over the years several presidents have relied on Article II of the constitution – which gives the president – in his capacity as commander chief –the power to direct us military forces in actions that the president believes protect America’s national security and interest abroad. But usually that only happens when there’s an imminent threat or an emergency.
So – the question is — is what’s happening in Iran a war? Or is it a limited presidential military action because there’s an imminent threat to national security or an emergency? Let’s start with how Trump himself defines it.
That’s three different definitions. Let’s start with Trump calling it a war –we know that if *that’s how he defines it — he legally cannot do this. But he also called it a major combat operation…which sort of falls in the category the bombing of Iran last summer and the military operation to capture Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. But—it’s his last description that makes this whole thing very fuzzy. Trump called it a massive and ongoing operation – in fact he just posted that “the heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of peace throughout the middle east and, indeed, the world!”
Now – if he’s going with that definition — that makes this operation different than the one in Iran last June and different than the operation in Venezuela. Those were …strike…boom…in and out. Over. But now Trump is saying this military action in Iran will go on as long as necessary. And it’s the length of this operation – that may be the one of the things that undercuts trump’s article two justification. See – many Republicans and Democrats in congress were very skeptical that Trump even had the constitutional authority to carry out the first limited Iran strike in June and the Venezuela operation – but those sort of slid through – because as I said the scope was and length limited. In fact – Trump’s own justice department issued a legal justification for the Venezuela operation saying it did not rise to the level of war because of its limited scale, scope and duration. What happened last night is clearly different. So far the Trump administration has only said the reason for this operation is Iran refused to give up its nuclear program and they may have missiles that could hit our allies and down the road could threaten the American homeland. That’s not technically an emergency or imminent threat – because that’s been the situation for years. As for trump’s explanation that the nuclear program is a threat – he also said in the same breath in that same video that the u-s military “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program last summer. So which is it? It can’t be obliterated and also threatening at the same time. On top of that the trump administration has *not* given a legal justification for operation epic fury and most importantly has not defined what constitutes a success and how we get out of this. It appears right now – that trump is relying on the unarmed and generally unorganized Iranian people to rise up against what’s left of the Iranian regime including the armed and organized Iranian security forces to achieve his goal of “peace in the middle east.”
Back home — most Republicans in congress seem very pleased with Trump’s actions in Iran overnight – but most Democrats and even some Republicans do not think Trump has this kind of constitutional authority. There is a war powers resolution ready to go in both the house and senate that would limit trump’s ability to keep doing this with the US military specifically in Iran. We’ll have to see if the house and senate move forward with that resolution this week.
Watch Trump’s speech here.
Look at Trump’s post here.
