“We are not at war. We have no intention of being at war,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference on March 5, hours after Republicans in the House blocked a war powers resolution that would have required congressional approval for any further military action against Iran. Instead, Johnson called the military action a “limited operation.”
“We’re winning the war by a lot,” Trump told reporters on March 7. “The war itself is going unbelievably. It’s as good as it can be.”
While there are varying definitions of war, even among academics who study such things, the war-or-not political debate is mostly about the legal definition of war under the Constitution and the implications that come with such a designation.
While Article II of the U.S. Constitution designates the president as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy,” Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress — and only Congress — the power “To declare War.” In other words, the president is obligated to seek authorization from Congress before he initiates a war.
But Congress hasn’t formally declared war since World War II. And it didn’t happen with the military attack initiated by Trump in Iran. Rather, in accordance with the 1973 War Powers Resolution, Trump provided a report to Congress on March 2 about the administration’s justification for the U.S.-Israeli joint strikes against Iran initiated on Feb. 28.
