Mr. Trump’s war against Iran is illegal. It has been since May 1, 2026. That was the day his limited 60-day authority for hostilities under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 expired.
Not only has Mr. Trump failed since May 1 to go to Congress for authorization of his war, he has continued his war in the face of an explicit Congressional Concurrent Resolution adopted by both houses on June 23, 2026, directing him to stop. The Resolution states: “Congress directs the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran” except to defend the United States from imminent attack while complying with the War Powers Resolution. He has not complied.
Prior to his initiation of hostilities, there was no imminent attack by Iran on the US. The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had earlier testified to the Congress in March 2026 that the intelligence community, “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” Yet President Trump went ahead and initiated his hostilities against Iran anyway resulting in Iran closing the Persian Gulf. We see the results in rapid inflation, in the prohibitive cost of diesel fuel for farmers and truckers to transport crops and commodities, in the rapid depletion of US Patriot Missiles over the Gulf (now so desperately needed in Ukraine to defend civilians against Russian hypersonic missiles), and in American losses of military personnel and advanced aircraft.
President Trump refused to take the off-ramp offered by Congress’s Concurrent Resolution on June 23 to cut our losses and bring our forces home. He defied Congress instead. As a result, Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky filed an Impeachment Resolution on September 16 against the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Hegseth, Massey charged, had followed the illegal orders of the president to continue hostilities beyond May 1, had failed to remove US forces as Congress had directed, and was waging Mr. Trump’s war in contravention of the War Powers Resolution.
The very next day Speaker Johnson abruptly adjourned the House of Representatives so no vote on the impeachment resolution could take place before the midterm elections. He did so because he is convinced a bipartisan majority is ready to impeach Hegseth.
Bear with me a moment to recite chapter and verse. The Declare War Clause of the US Constitution (art. I, sec.8, cl.11), provides Congress the exclusive power to initiate war. The Constitution grants a president operational control to wage war only after Congress has authorized a war (art. II, sec.2, cl.1). Further, the Congress has authorized a president to introduce armed forces into hostilities without authorization only for a national emergency (the Director of National Intelligence had testified there was none), and for a limited period of time not to exceed 60 days (now over). (War Powers Resolution of 1973, 50 USC 1541(c).) Mr. Trump’s sixty days expired May 1, 2026. His time is up.
I abhor the theocratic regime in Tehran as much as anyone, maybe more so because I remember our agony as the Mullahs held our 444 hostages they took in 1979. I am aware though that no American President since then has been able to restructure the middle east. Moreover, intelligence officials have warned every president since then, including Mr. Trump, that Iranians would respond to an attack by closing the Gulf. Mr. Trump attacked anyway and they have. In a movie released in 1930, Stan Laurel famously complained to Ollie Hardy that Ollie had made “another fine mess.” In Iran Mr. Trump’s recklessness has made “another fine mess.”
A keystone of our liberty is James Madison’s separation of powers into the three coequal branches to check and balance each other. Madison wrote the checks and balances into the Constitution so no president could hold all the power. After the Revolution of 1776, the founding fathers were determined there would be: “No Kings!” Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10 the checks and balances are there because: “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”
There is no enlightened statesman at the helm. Mr. Trump has shown contempt for the requirement of Congressional authorization for his war to continue as required by the Declare War Clause of the Constitution, and by the War Powers Resolution. The checks and balances are all that we have left to ensure our liberty from Mr. Trump’s dangerous whims and caprices.
Once a president and his appointees’ violations of the law are normalized, we have traveled away from democracy. Mr. Jefferson wrote in 1801 of the American Presidency (after the narrow defeat of Aaron Burr): “Bad men will sometime get in.” Now, that today we can plainly see. That we now so plainly know. The Sage of Monticello wrote for the ages. Vote for change. Saving our democracy depends on it.
Robert P. Wise is a Northsider.
