President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend falls in a decades-long tradition of military strikes of debatable legality that the other branches of government have been unwilling or unable to check, experts said.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, while a 1973 law called the War Powers Resolution was meant to limit a president’s authority. The bipartisan objectors to Trump’s strikes in Iran argue that he violated both the Constitution and the law.
But presidents for years have asserted ever-broader readings of their power to direct military strikes. Courts have proved unwilling to question presidential uses of military force, and it would now likely take a veto-proof majority to counter strikes such as those on Iran, experts said.
