As Israel and Iran enter their fifth day of direct military confrontation, lawmakers from both parties are mobilizing to constrain President Donald Trump’s ability to commit U.S. forces to the conflict without explicit congressional approval.

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced a war powers resolution in the Senate on Monday, while Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced companion legislation in the House on Tuesday. The measures invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution to require congressional authorization before any U.S. military action against Iran.

“This is not our war,” Massie declared in announcing the House resolution. “Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.” The Republican congressman’s position aligns with Democratic co-lead Khanna, who emphasized that “no president should be able to bypass Congress’s constitutional authority over matters of war.

The House resolution has garnered significant bipartisan support, with original cosponsors including progressive Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), alongside moderate Democrats like Don Beyer (D-VA). The measure is considered “privileged,” meaning it can bypass leadership and force a full House vote.

President Trump’s stance on potential U.S. military involvement has shifted dramatically as the conflict has intensified. Initially cautious about direct military engagement, Trump has grown increasingly confrontational in his rhetoric and appears more open to using American military assets against Iranian nuclear facilities.

On Monday, Trump abruptly left the G7 summit in Canada, declaring he wanted “a real end” to Iran’s nuclear program rather than just a ceasefire. “I’m not too much in a mood to negotiate with Iran,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. He later posted on Truth Social demanding Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and warning residents of Tehran to evacuate.

The president has repeatedly emphasized that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon” and claimed the U.S. has “complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” When asked about potential U.S. military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, Trump ominously stated he hoped it “is wiped out long before that.”

Trump’s increasingly aggressive posture stands in stark contrast to his own intelligence chief’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. In March 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress that “the intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”

When confronted with Gabbard’s testimony during his return from the G7 summit, Trump dismissed his own intelligence director’s assessment. “I don’t care what she said, I think they were very close to having” a nuclear weapon, the president told reporters.

Gabbard had noted in her March testimony that while Iran’s “enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons,” there was no evidence of an active weapons program.

The current conflict began on June 13, when Israel launched “Operation Rising Lion,” a comprehensive assault targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, military installations, and key leadership. Israeli forces struck the Natanz nuclear facility, uranium conversion sites in Isfahan, missile complexes, and IRGC facilities across Iran.

Israeli officials claimed Iran was “marching very quickly” toward nuclear weapons capability and could achieve “a test device and possibly an initial device within months.” Israel assessed that Iran had amassed enough enriched uranium to produce up to 15 nuclear weapons within days.

The current push for military action against Iran bears striking similarities to the prelude to the Iraq War, particularly regarding Benjamin Netanyahu’s role in promoting military intervention based on weapons of mass destruction claims. In September 2002, Netanyahu testified before the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, declaring with absolute certainty: “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons.”

Netanyahu’s 2002 testimony proved to be entirely wrong when the Iraq Survey Group found no evidence of active WMD programs after an exhaustive 18-month investigation. The CIA’s final report in 2005 confirmed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them.”

The Iraq War began on March 20, 2003, when the United States, joined by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, launched “Operation Iraqi Freedom” with the stated goals of dismantling Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction program, ending Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and liberating the Iraqi people. The initial military phase lasted just over a month, with coalition forces capturing Baghdad on April 9, 2003, after encountering relatively light resistance as large numbers of Iraqi troops simply chose not to fight.

The war resulted in over 4,700 U.S. and allied military deaths, between 185,000 to 208,000 documented Iraqi civilian deaths through 2020, and hundreds of thousands more when including broader estimates, while creating massive regional instability that facilitated the rise of ISIS rather than the democratic transformation that advocates like Netanyahu had promised.

Iran has retaliated with massive missile and drone attacks against Israeli cities and military targets. Iranian officials report 224 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel has reported 24 civilian casualties.

The war powers resolutions reflect broader concerns about executive overreach in matters of war and peace. Senator Kaine emphasized that “it is not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States.”

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky supports the congressional effort, stating his position that “no president can bomb another country without the permission of Congress.” However, some Democrats oppose the measure, with Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania saying he doesn’t want to curtail Trump’s ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The constitutional debate centers on Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which grants Congress the sole power to declare war20. The 1973 War Powers Resolution was designed to limit presidential authority to engage in military conflicts without congressional approval, though its effectiveness has been repeatedly challenged.