Only Congress has the authority to declare war—but Republican leadership seems content to let Donald Trump do whatever he wants at whim.
The Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on whether or not to block Trump’s warfaring in Iran via a war powers resolution. The bipartisan resolution, introduced by Democratic Senator Tim Kaine and cosponsored by Republican Senator Rand Paul, would “direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.”
But not everyone in the annals of Congress is prepared to seize the legislative branch’s constitutionally appointed authority.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Wednesday that restricting his Oval Office ally’s military power through the passage of a war powers resolution “would be a terrible, dangerous idea.”
“It would empower our enemies, it would kneecap our own forces, it would take the ability of the U.S. military and the commander in chief away from completing this critical mission to keep everybody safe,” Johnson said.
The Republican House leader added that Iran had attacked three U.S. embassies in the days since U.S. bombs fell on the country.
“Those are sovereign territories of the U.S. They have declared war on us,” Johnson said. “I don’t believe in the semantics.… We’re not at war right now. We’re four days into a very specific, clear mission and operation—Operation Epic Fury—that has two components, as you know.”
“Everybody has explained,” Johnson said.
But nobody in Washington has explained the rationale for going to war with Iran with any modicum of clarity, leaving even those in Trump’s Cabinet confused about the intended messaging. State Secretary Marco Rubio, for instance, had to eat his own words Tuesday evening after the president disagreed with his depiction of the war. Rubio had initially suggested to reporters on Monday that Israel had forced Trump’s hand, forcing the U.S. to strike first due to intel that indicated Iran would retaliate with force against American interests if Israel followed through on its plans to attack.
By the next day, Rubio was stuttering in front of cameras that he had never said anything of the sort. Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., claimed later that day that Rubio’s point-blank comments had been “taken out of context.”
So far, six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Eighteen American soldiers have also been seriously injured. More than 1,000 Iranian civilians have been killed, including 176 children, dozens of whom were at a girls’ school in the country’s south.
More than a dozen countries have been roped into the conflict since the U.S. began bombing Iran—including France, the U.K., and Greece—effectively destabilizing the entire region while disrupting global markets and oil production.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces may not be able to keep their defenses up: military officials have stressed since Sunday that fighting Iran has already drastically depleted America’s missile defense systems.
In a closed-door meeting with lawmakers Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine reportedly said that Iran’s Shahed attack drones had proved a more difficult problem than initially predicted.
One source told CNN that the U.S. has been “burning” through long-range precision-guided missiles over the last four days.
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