Iran’s top diplomat warned Sunday that the U.S. attacks on its nuclear sites “will have everlasting consequences” and that Tehran “reserves all options” to retaliate.
It’s more complicated than it should be, only Congress can declare we are at war, however over the past 200 years they have passed laws allowing the president to do things before that vote out of a sense of being flexible and Congress being slow , and keep allowing more and more things, I think currently the president can do almost anything with the military so long as Congress leaders are told and they then can vote to stop it, instead of voting to approve it.
The constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to formally declare war.
That said, Congress hasn’t declared war since 1942, yet we’ve obviously taken part in many wars since then.
Sadly there just hasn’t been enough Congressional support to retaliate against a president for jumping to military action without authorization. And it doesn’t help that the average American doesn’t know that the president is not allowed to just deploy troops at will (in most cases, Iran included).
I read a post that said he couldn’t go to war without a vote from congress, was that wrong?
Edit: I’m not a US citizen so I’m not sure
It’s more complicated than it should be, only Congress can declare we are at war, however over the past 200 years they have passed laws allowing the president to do things before that vote out of a sense of being flexible and Congress being slow , and keep allowing more and more things, I think currently the president can do almost anything with the military so long as Congress leaders are told and they then can vote to stop it, instead of voting to approve it.
The constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to formally declare war.
That said, Congress hasn’t declared war since 1942, yet we’ve obviously taken part in many wars since then.
Sadly there just hasn’t been enough Congressional support to retaliate against a president for jumping to military action without authorization. And it doesn’t help that the average American doesn’t know that the president is not allowed to just deploy troops at will (in most cases, Iran included).
If the president can do it without consequences, then he is allowed. Turns out words on paper mean nothing.
Legally speaking that’s correct. There was nothing legal about this, though.