Trump Is Bombing Iran Without A War Declaration. Can A US President Get Away With It?

Last Updated:March 05, 2026, 17:52 IST

With the Senate having declined to restrict his authority, Trump retains full discretion over the scope and continuation of US military operations against Iran.

American bombs have fallen on Tehran. An Iranian warship has been sunk in the Indian Ocean. And yet, at no point has the United States Congress formally declared war.

On Wednesday, the Republican-led Senate rejected a resolution that sought to restrict US President Donald Trump’s ability to carry out further military action against Iran. The vote was 47-53, falling short of the simple majority needed to even move the resolution to the Senate floor.

US Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who introduced the resolution, wanted Congress to force the removal of “United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Iran, unless explicitly authorised by a declaration of war or a specific authorisation for use of military force."

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It failed and that failure has revived one of the oldest and most consequential debates in American democracy: who actually has the power to take the United States to war?

What US Constitution Says?

The answer the US Constitution gives is that Article I, Section 8 explicitly grants Congress, not the President, the power to declare war but Article II simultaneously makes the President the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The Constitution, in other words, splits war powers down the middle- Congress declares war, the President fights it. That division has been the source of conflict between the two branches ever since.

When Did US Congress Last Declare War?

In 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbour. The United States has not issued a formal declaration of war since the Second World War- despite fighting major conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and now Iran. Every military engagement in the eight decades since has been conducted under a presidential order, a broadly-worded congressional authorisation or a claimed executive emergency power.

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This means that American presidents have been going to war without formal declarations for over eighty years. Trump is not doing something new- he is following a pattern that has become the default.

Can US Congress Actually Stop Trump?

In theory, yes through two mechanisms. The first is cutting off funding. Congress controls the federal budget and can, in principle, defund a military operation. The second is passing a war powers resolution of the kind Kaine introduced this week.

But as Wednesday’s vote showed, both paths require political will that is nearly impossible to assemble when one party controls the White House and the Senate. Even if a resolution cleared both chambers, the President could veto it. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate- a threshold that is virtually unreachable.

What Happens Now?

With the Senate having declined to restrict his authority, Trump retains full discretion over the scope and continuation of US military operations against Iran. The administration has framed the campaign- conducted alongside Israel under Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion- as a legitimate exercise of presidential war powers.

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