President Donald Trump’s decision to launch a surprise military strike against Iran is constitutional and not in violation of federal law, Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz rejects claims from “dead wrong” critics that the action in Iran amounts to an illegal war.
It is true that it is only Congress that has the power to declare war,” Dershowitz said. However, the U.S. has not formally declared war since June 1942, when it declared war on Romania during World War II. Since then, presidents of both parties have initiated military actions without formal declarations of war, including in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
“Every Democratic president since has taken some military actions without congressional approval. So I think the president’s decision to level a surprise attack, one that doesn’t permit for Congress to have a debate about it, is completely lawful, completely constitutional, and correct in terms of the national interest of the United States. The idea that it’s clearly illegal to do what President Trump did is just dead wrong as a matter of constitutional law”, Dershowitz said.