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A woman sifts through the rubble in her house in the Beryanak District after it was damaged by missile attacks two days before, on March 15, 2026, in Tehran, Iran.
(Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
Who Decides Whether America Goes to War?
Mar 18, 2026
Because taking our country into war has the potential, if not the likelihood, even in modernwarfare, of costing the bodies and lives of American soldiers as well as disrupting the economy, this is an important question.
The Constitution is the guide to answering this question. The Constitution clearly states that Congress has the power to declare war. The President does not have that power.
The War Power Resolution of 1973, passed by Congress, recognizes that distribution of power by saying that a President can only order military into an existing or imminent hostility if Congress has declared war or specifically authorized the President to use military force, or there is a national emergency created by an attack on the U.S.
The drafters of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution thus made a distinction between making a reasoned decision to go to war and having to react quickly when attacked.
The Executive Branch, however, has consistently held that this limitation on the President's power applies only to "full-scale" war.
So the question is, when is a war a war in the constitutional sense? Since this is a definitional issue, I would say that hostilities are a war in the constitutional sense when they are in the legal dictionary sense. If it looks like a war, if it sounds like a war, if it moves like a war, it is a war.
According to Black's Law Dictionary, war is "armed conflict by forces of sovereign powers." War does not exist merely by one nation attacking another, but when the other nation responds, whether by a declaration or otherwise, indicating it feels it is at war. War is a conflict.
Under that definition, we are definitely at war with Iran. Note that the legal definition of war has nothing to do with the size of the conflict or its duration. It also does not depend on the formal declaration of war.
So in the past, when the President has ordered U.S. forces to attack a country, and that country has not responded in kind, those instances have not been "war"—there has been no "conflict"—and so the President was within his powers in conducting the hostilities. Trump's actions against Venezuela would fall into this category. But when the attacked country has responded in kind, as is the case with Iran, then a state of war exists, regardless of the double talk engaged in by the Office of Legislative Council.
NOTE: The 1973 War Powers Resolution would restrict the President from initiating hostilities, even in a "non-war" situation in Venezuela. He could only engage in hostilities without authorization if the U.S. was attacked.
Conservative "originalist" legal scholars look to what the words in the Constitution meant at the time it was drafted. In the 17th and 18th centuries, war between European countries was not uncommon. They involved military conflict between 2 or more countries, usually to gain territory, and, in the early 18th century, over religion.
In those times, all countries were ruled by monarchs, and when countries went to war, it was specifically for the glory and financial benefit of the monarch. These wars caused much misery for the general population and were much on the minds of the Founders when the Constitution was drafted.
It was because of their knowledge of the religious wars that the Founders were adamant that there be a separation of church and state, that there be no established religion. And it was because of their knowledge of the arrogance of monarchs in going to war to obtain glory or riches at the cost of the lives and well-being of their people that the Founders wrote into the Constitution that only Congress had the authority to declare war; no longer would a single individual be able to wreak such havoc on the people. And indeed, initially, that is how the Constitution was interpreted.
The New York Times reported that Republicans in Congress have been tripping over themselves, determined not to call the conflict with Iran a war. Yet from what I've presented, it very clearly is war in the meaning of the Constitution, whether looked at from an originalist point of view or a contemporary one.
Clearly, here is yet another example of Trump violating the terms of the Constitution. And he clearly doesn't care. Not only that, but he also has not shown the deference to the American people that past Presidents have shown by speaking directly to the people and explaining why he was taking this serious step.
Once again, Trump's arrogance proves how prescient the Founders were in crafting the Constitution with a balance of power to prevent abuses by any branch of government. And that system has worked ... until now. It is only because the Republicans in Congress and many Trump-appointed members of the judiciary have violated their oath of office that the system is not working now and Trump's abuses of power go unchecked.
The American people, not just Democrats, must arise and voice their disapproval, both on the streets and at the ballot box.
Ronald L. Hirsch is a teacher, legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, consultant, composer, author, and volunteer. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School and the author of We Still Hold These Truths. Read more of his writing at www.PreservingAmericanValues.com
Editor's Note: This piece was originally published under the title of "Is the U.S. at 'War' with Iran?" The first few paragraphs were also updated on 3/19 due to timeliness.
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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (left) and Admiral Charles Bradford "Brad" Cooper II, Commander of US Central Command, speak during a press conference at US Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, on March 5, 2026.
(Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)
Republicans aren’t willing to call the war in Iran what it is
Mar 15, 2026
Let's state the obvious: We’re at war with Iran.
My evidence? Turn on your TV. U.S. forces, working with Israel, killed the supreme leader of Iran and many of his top aides. We sunk Iran’s navy and destroyed most of their air force. We bombed thousands of military sites across the region. President Trump, the commander in chief, has demanded “unconditional surrender” from Iran. He routinely refers to this as a “war.” Pete Hegseth, who calls himself the secretary of war, also describes this as a war daily, such as last week when he said, “We set the terms of this war.”
The truth that we are at war is so simple, only politicians and lawyers could make it seem complicated.
Indeed, a slew of Republican legislators insist we’re not actually at war. House Speaker Mike Johnson: “We’re not at war right now. We’re four days into a very specific, clear mission and operation.” Florida Rep. Brian Mast: “Nobody should classify this as war. It is combat operations.” South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham: “I don’t know if this is technically a war.” Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin: “This isn’t a war. We haven’t declared war.” Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna: “Strategic strikes are not war.”
Pearl Harbor was a strategic strike too.
Then there’s the claim that we’re not at war with Iran but Iran is at war with us. This is half true, insofar as Iran has been committing acts of war against the U.S. since it took our embassy staff hostage in 1979. But waging a war in response doesn’t make it any less of a war.
One is tempted to invoke George Orwell’s “1984,” in which the existence or nonexistence of war hinges on what the Ministry of Truth (or Truth Social) puts out on a given day. But nothing so literary is at play. This is (mostly) legalism run amok.
The main reason congressional Republicans reject the W-word is simple. If it’s merely a “combat operation” or “strategic strike” in response to an “imminent threat,” then the president has the authority to do it without congressional approval. If it’s a war, then it’s arguably illegal and unconstitutional within the framework of the War Powers Resolution or the Constitution itself, because under the Constitution declaring war is the sole responsibility of Congress. And the last thing this Congress wants to do is take responsibility for anything.
This at least partly explains why Trump insists he had a “feeling” Iran was about to attack us. He has even suggested that Iran was just weeks away from having a nuclear weapon and that he prevented an imminent “nuclear war.”
The War Powers Resolution — nominally rejected by every president since it was passed in 1973 — was intended to restrict the president’s ability to use force without Congress’ consent. It backfired. It says the president can respond militarily to threats as he deems necessary, but then must go to Congress within 60 days for approval to continue hostilities. The result: Presidents have a free hand to wage war for roughly two months, unless Congress stops them.
But congressional Republicans don’t want to stop Trump. That’s tactically defensible, if you believe this war was necessary. But the tactic forces Congress to say, in effect, “Don’t believe you’re lying eyes. This isn’t a war.”
For those who only vaguely remember what they learned in high school about the War Powers Resolution — or for that matter, the Constitution — this riot of legalism only fuels confusion.
But there’s another factor driving the evasion. Trump made the idea of staying out of “forever wars” a central tenet of America First. There’s no textbook definition of “forever war” — always a ludicrous term — so you can understand why some people believed it was code for “Middle East war” or just plain war of any kind. The irony is that Trump could make a plausible case that this war is allowable under the Authorization to Use Military Force George W. Bush received in 2001. But symbolically that would mean Trump is continuing Bush’s “forever war.”
Regardless, Republicans aren’t just under a legal clock to get this thing over with, but a political one too. Polling shows that Americans, including many Republicans, have no thirst for a long conflict, which makes sense given that they were not asked to prepare for this war at all. Hence, the insistence that this war will be short and tidy.
The problem is that Iran knows this. Which is why they don’t have to win, they just have to ride out the bombings until the public or Trump loses patience with this very real war.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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A memorial in Tyrone honors residents who served in World War I.
Photo by Jay Paterno.
Selling War Like a Brand Is Disrespectful to Those Truly in Harm’s Way
Mar 15, 2026
Each day in America as late morning approaches, families of service members stationed in the Middle East probably grow nervous as nightfall nears seven time zones away. On military bases or aircraft carriers, pilots are fueling up and taking off for missions over Iran. In countries across both sides of the Persian Gulf, civilians await the terror of missiles and bombs whistling through the darkness.
Back home, a mother worries about her son in his plane. A spouse, with a young child, worries about their service member while balancing the everyday stresses of holding a family together. At night, the seriousness of war emerges, and the distant drumbeats pound amid the silence.
All those miles away, United States service members, both women and men, have already been wounded or killed. And all those miles away, missiles and bombs fall on innocent people, young and old, who have nothing to do with the ambitions or
In America, we have an administration posting videos on social media platforms with clips from movies, video games, and animated films. Thirty-second clips, based on fantasy with high-energy music, were used to both justify and excite the base for war. “Epic Fury” warfare is being packaged with a slick name and social media clips like influencers trying to sell us clothes, drinks, or vacation destinations.
It is a calculated sales job that is disrespectful to the solemn conduct of war.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power. I hope that we understand that the less we use our power, the stronger it will be.” Over two centuries later, the use of war power is made easier because we’ve walled off a segment of our population from the actual costs. But if we look, there are reminders everywhere.
The words written in The Gettysburg Compiler on July 7, 1863, should still haunt us: “Every name…is a lightning stroke to some heart and breaks like thunder over some home, and falls a long black shadow over some hearthstone.”
There is an incredibly powerful scene in the movie “Saving Private Ryan.” A mother of four World War II soldiers is busy in her kitchen doing the routine tasks of an ordinary day. We see a U.S. Army car driving up the winding, dusty lane to her farmhouse, and we know the men in that car carry devastating news that three of her sons have been killed. Her head is down as she washes dishes in the sink, so she doesn’t look out the window to see what we see.
In her reality, her sons will all remain alive until that car arrives. But with that approach, that moment will forever change everything in her life. How you wish that car never arrived.
As her dogs bark, she looks up and sees the car make its final turn toward her house. Her face reveals a reluctant and tragic understanding that something horrible is coming. She walks quietly to the door, opens the screen door as the officers’ car comes to a stop. As a chaplain gets out with the officers, she falls to her knees on the front porch without a word.
This is the reality of war.
Years after our wars, names are engraved in stone or cast in bronze on memorials in small towns and big cities, marking our history. In towns like Bedford, Bellefonte, Boalsburg, Tyrone, or on campus at Penn State, we see them. The people who carried these names are largely lost to history, but their names represent lives cut short by the horrors of real war, rather than an alternate reality of slick imagery. The Lt. Michael P. Murphy memorial at the Veterans’ Plaza on Penn State’s University Park campus. Photo by Jay Paterno
A man named Alexander Russell, killed just nine days before the end of World War I, is remembered in Boalsburg. In Bellefonte, Alexander Green’s name appears for his Civil War service as a member of what was then known as the 6th U.S. Colored Regiment. At Penn State, Lt. Michael Murphy’s name is remembered for his ultimate sacrifice just over 20 years ago in Afghanistan. These men were taken in the days of youth, when, but for the waging of wars, their futures of possibility seemed to extend before them.
All wars represent humanity's failure. Whether the wars were just or not, it no longer matters to the individual soldiers who have lost. Their loss struck sorrow in the hearts of friends and families, leaving people wondering what if and what it all meant.
War is tragic for others, too. Innocent civilian casualties are no less tragic, and the long black shadow also falls on their hearthstone. No memorial will bear their names, and we dismiss their deaths all too easily.
The slick packaging of war, the dehumanization of people who do not look like us or worship like us allows us to go on accepting and cheering propagandized marketing campaigns. We even have a sanitized way to describe the death of innocents using words like “collateral damage.”
Through the noise, bots on social media hammer home the “patriotic” imagery. The videos of missiles striking targets become a voyeuristic source of entertainment. But that is our world in 2026. Everything is about selling “the brand” from consumer products to entertainment to war.
Nothing could be more dishonest or disrespectful to the people who are truly in harm’s way. The people who serve this nation and innocent people on the ground are caught in a crossfire stoked by small people with big egos who find it all too easy to order planes, soldiers, bombs, and missiles into “action.” They rain destruction and death on our fellow human beings.
But back home, there are families for whom the potential cost of war extends far beyond higher gas prices.
As people of faith in this country, we pray that the means of war be employed sparingly and only in the cause of what is just, after all other serious attempts at good faith diplomacy are exhausted. One hopes that the people in power come to a more respectful understanding and portrayal of the horrible power of war. False bravado is the refuge of cowards.
Tonight, as the bombs fall, man’s inhumanity to man continues. The lights of explosions in the dark flash to expose the terror in the eyes of those trampled under the hooves of the four horsemen of the apocalypse: War, Death, Famine, and Conquest.
And somewhere, a stone cutter is sharpening his tools, and bad news may be making its way to the home of a mother or a spouse. And innocents are crushed under the weight of a war waged by others.
Selling War Like a Brand Is Disrespectful to Those Truly in Harm’s Way was first published on StateCollege.com.
Jay Paterno is a former quarterbacks coach for Penn State University, ran for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 2014, and consults on a variety of issues.
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U.S. Constitution
Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
The Constitution: As Important As the Bible
Mar 10, 2026
America was made for a purpose - to prosper, to live better, to be all one can be; they are one and the same thing. Our Constitution was designed to deliver that purpose. The Constitution is a business plan, a prototype invention intentionally designed to grow people.
The Constitution was a paradigm change in who governed whom, and for what ultimate purpose people would govern each other. By amending it with the Bill of Rights, it became a purposeful enterprise framework for people to prosper first, not the more powerful, self-centered, often tyrannical, and prosperity-limiting special interests.
The Constitution was designed to better accomplish Maslow’s 1943 landmark pyramid of the human ‘Hierarchy of Needs’. Being all one can be is the highest level of human need for prosperity and is inherent in all a person’s most basic needs. A person who lacks any of the basic securities of air, water, nutrition, home, and health is still striving to prosper and be all they can be.
Prosperity is the origin of commerce and finance. Abraham Lincoln nailed it, saying, ”Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves a much higher consideration.”
Today, 250 years after inventing the Constitution, the world knows for certain what our Founders were miraculously led to believe only in faith: that it is in humankind's common makeup to want to create, to help one another, and to prosper as one is best able. That is life 101, why people invest in themselves and others, create businesses, work at jobs, and relish in a common good they helped to create.
Given a choice, we would likely choose to work in businesses that benefit ourselves, our families, and our shared future on Earth over work that would reduce any of those. Prosperity is larger than just money or a financial target. Regardless of one’s station in life, prosperity means living more securely, more completely, and more (hope)fully.
The Constitution can be a life insurance policy we invest in with our votes and taxes. During the Cold War, my American quality of life and standard of living were in sharp contrast to the oppressed lives and often cruel methods under Soviet authoritarianism and European colonialism. The Constitution seemed like the greatest life insurance policy on Earth for a person TO BE ALL ONE CAN BE. Today, I know it isn’t a policy with guarantees. It should be a manufacturing system, an enterprise with a business-like purpose to build better lives.
We were wrong to think democracy and capitalism were America’s common unifying purposes. They are just processes, albeit critically important value-adding processes, in the constitutional system designed to build value-added lives.
Now there are two dozen nations with better-scoring life insurance policies than ours. They are knockoffs of our prototype Constitution, democratic representative systems, each achieving different prosperity outcomes for people. The renowned business consultant Peter Drucker famously said,” The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.” There are 7 billion potential customers who want what our prototype system was designed to do: enable better lives.
Building better people and lives, nurturing people TO BE ALL THEY CAN BE is the greatest business opportunity in the history of humanity! America is failing to improve or sustain the democratic system we invented for that purpose. We have run out of excuses to not reinvent ourselves yet again by taking the science of government to the next level. We, and every nation, democratic or otherwise, should commit to governing ourselves for a truly COMMON (global) UNIFYING PURPOSE - building better lives.
The Founders' concept of happiness and equality is mirrored in both ‘The Golden Rule’ and the Constitution. Both intend to achieve the same purpose: improved, more prosperous lives. The Constitution is as inspired and important as every religious version of ‘The Golden Rule’. For even greater benefit to humanity, the Constitution is an actual operational plan and social contract with laws to hold us accountable for human self-sustainment.
Perhaps both humanity and the Constitution were divinely inspired. Invented in an era lit by candlelight and lantern, the Founders could not fathom the electronic possibilities of the World Wide Web, the Hubble telescope, or a photograph of a ‘Pale Blue Dot’ (Earth) taken from an American spacecraft 3.7 billion miles from Philadelphia. Looking back at ourselves from outer space, our faith in a Creator and the possibility of a real heaven is more within reach now than ever before. Maybe mankind’s faith, hope and knowledge are beginning to come together; if what we see in that pale blue dot is actually the heaven we imagine. If Earth is not heaven, it is for certain our only home. There is no sensible reason not to treat Earth as we would treat the heaven we hope for.
During the Cold War we changed America’s motto from E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one) to ‘In God We Trust’. We are exponentially more knowledgeable now and should hold ourselves more accountable to the supreme value of truth and trust. An improved motto would be - ‘In God We Trust, and God Trust Us’... to be all we can be.
The world is no more ready for another paradigm shift in the purpose of government than it was for the one America created 250 years ago. But the reality is this. Now the world knows what it couldn’t have then. The ‘Golden Rule’ is about building better lives and a better planet for an existential purpose. That business transcends religion, borders, race, and culture. It is not a business that will prosper with a strategy of domination and devaluation of truth and trust. America’s business, our common unifying purpose, must be a healthy competition for constant improvement and quality of the most important product to humanity - BETTER PEOPLE, LIVES, and PLANET.
Jerry Branum, Captain USN(Ret), is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the National Defense University, Industrial College. He realized in 2017 that military service was no longer the first line of defense of America and the Constitution. Voters are. He volunteers with Veterans for All Voters and other non-profits trying to make elections fair for soley people. Not as proud, but still an investor in and customer of The Constitution.
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Trump’s ‘Just for Fun’ War Talk Shows a Dangerous Trivialization