Democrats bashing President Trump for striking Iran without congressional consent are bumping into an inconvenient history: Democratic presidents have done the same thing for decades.
From Bill Clinton, to Barack Obama, to (most recently) Joe Biden, every Democratic president of the modern era has employed U.S. military forces to attack targets overseas, including strikes in Bosnia, Syria, Libya and Yemen. While they sought approval from Capitol Hill in some of those cases, Congress never provided it.
That history has muddled the Democrats’ current argument that Trump, in striking three Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend, violated the Constitution by acting on his own, without the formal approval of Congress.
The dynamic has not been overlooked by Republican leaders, who have hailed the strikes on Iran as a national security necessity and defended Trump’s powers to launch them unilaterally. Those voices are pointing specifically to the actions of Clinton, Obama and Biden to bolster their arguments.
“Since [World War II] we’ve had more than 125 military operations from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. They have occurred without a Declaration of War by Congress,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters after the strikes. “Presidents of both parties have exercised that authority frequently.”
Johnson ticked off a few examples under the most recent Democratic administrations. Biden, he noted, ordered strikes against terrorist groups in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Obama sustained a months-long bombing campaign in Libya. And Clinton had bombed parts of the former Yugoslavia during the Bosnian war of the mid-1990s.
“Every one of those actions were taken unilaterally and without prior authorization from Congress,” Johnson said.
That background is forcing Democrats to reckon with that past just as many of them are now demanding that Trump cease all military operations in Iran without explicit congressional approval. Some of them are quick to acknowledge the incongruity, voicing something like regret that Congress didn’t stand more firm in the face of those unilateral Democratic missions.
“Just because it was wrong then doesn’t mean it’s not wrong now,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (Calif.), a former Air Force attorney who’s now the vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “The Constitution is the Constitution. And it says only Congress has the power to declare war. And it’s been a bipartisan problem, with Congress ceding way too much power to the executive branch.”
Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), the chairman of the Democratic Caucus, seemed to agree. He lamented that the politics of Washington have sometimes curtailed Congress’s appetite for asserting its war powers as a check on the president, especially when Congress and the White House are controlled by opposing parties.
“That part is unfortunate. Maybe we’ve missed a few opportunities,” Aguilar said.
“But that doesn’t mean that we turn a blind eye right now,” he quickly added. “It doesn’t mean that we just let Donald Trump walk all over us. It means that we stand up for our authority and speak up on behalf of our constituents at every opportunity.”
The Constitution makes clear that Congress and the White House both play crucial roles in conducting military operations. Article I lends Congress the power to declare war, and Article II stipulates that the president is “Commander and Chief” of the Armed Forces, responsible for executing wars that Congress sanctions.
Yet that conceptual balance has tilted heavily toward the executive branch over most of the last century: The last time Congress formally declared war was in 1941, after Pearl Harbor. And since then, the president has assumed virtually all power, not only to steer the Armed Forces, but also to launch them into battle.
In 1973, in the wake of Vietnam, Congress sought to reassert its authority by passing the War Powers Act. (President Nixon vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode him). The law requires presidents to “consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities,” but it does not demand the formal authorization of the legislative branch.
As tensions in the Middle East exploded earlier in the month, lawmakers in both parties sought to limit U.S. involvement with war powers resolutions requiring Trump to get explicit congressional consent before using military force in Iran. One was sponsored by three leading Democrats: Reps. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), Jim Himes (Conn.) and Adam Smith (Wash.). Another was bipartisan, championed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
Supporters of the resolutions are quick to acknowledge that the president has the power to act unilaterally in extraordinary circumstances, like if the nation is attacked. But there’s no evidence, they say, to indicate that Iran posed an immediate threat to Americans ahead of Trump’s strikes.
“Any president has self-defense authority under Article II of the Constitution. But to meet that threshold, you have to show that there was an imminent risk of attack against Americans or U.S. facilities. That’s the standard,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a former Army Ranger who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. “As a member of the Armed Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, I have not seen any evidence leading up to the attack that there was an imminent risk to Americans or to U.S. facilities to meet that threshold.”
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivered a similar assessment.
“If our country is attacked, all and any powers go to the president to act,” she said. “That didn’t exist here, so the president should have come to Congress.”
Complicating their argument are the actions of Democratic presidents who also activated the Armed Services without congressional consent.
In 1998, for instance, in response to the terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton ordered the launch of cruise missiles targeting al Qaeda strongholds in Sudan and Afghanistan. He also joined NATO forces in bombing Serbian targets in the former Yugoslavia.
Obama infuriated liberals in Congress in launching strikes against numerous countries during his eight-year reign, including an extensive campaign in Libya in 2011, which helped in the toppling of President Muammar Gaddafi, as well as subsequent incursions in Syria, Yemen and Somalia.
Obama had asked Congress for specific authorization in some cases, but lawmakers on Capitol Hill couldn’t agree on a resolution to provide it. Instead, those operations leaned heavily on a 2001 resolution — known as an authorization of military force, or AUMF — passed by Congress to sanction the Afghanistan War after the attacks of 9/11.
In the same vein, Biden used U.S. forces to target terrorist cells in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
Lieu, for one, emphasized that he was opposed to Obama’s use of force without Congress giving the OK.
“I publicly stated at the time that Obama needed congressional authorization to strike Syria. I believe Trump needs congressional authorization to strike Iran,” he said. “My view of the Constitution does not change based on what party the president happens to belong to.”
Other Democrats sought to keep the debate focused more squarely on current events.
“We can write books and fill your column inches with regrets under this dome. We’ll save that for other days,” Aguilar said. “But what is in front of us today is: are we going to stand up for our constitutional authority?”
A week after the strikes, the debate over war powers may already be academic.
On Tuesday, Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel that, if it holds, may make the constitutional disagreement moot. Massie has said he won’t force a vote on his war powers measure if the ceasefire continues. Johnson has refused to consider such a resolution in any event, calling the War Powers Act unconstitutional. And Trump officials are expected to meet with Iranian officials later this week, when the U.S. will seek a commitment from Tehran to abandon any plans to produce nuclear weapons.
Still, there are plenty of questions swirling about the ultimate success of the strikes in dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities. And Trump, asked whether he would attack again if necessary, didn’t hesitate.
“Without question,” he said. “Absolutely.”