The United States, together with Israel, carried out a full-scale attack on Iran on the 28th local time, and it emerged that, as with last year, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the operation without seeking congressional approval.
According to CNN, Sen. Jack Reed, the Democratic ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement issued after the U.S. airstrikes on Iran that he did not receive advance notice of the strikes.
Reed said, "President Trump barely mentioned Iran in the longest State of the Union address in history and did not make his objectives clear," adding, "It is hard to justify actions taken without a rational basis."
Trump has consistently ignored the customary practice of notifying Congress on matters critical to national security, and this time the "Congress bypass" new normal was laid bare again.
When he launched a full-scale strike on Iran's nuclear facilities in June last year, he also did not obtain congressional approval and faced enormous criticism. At the time, not only Democrats but some Republicans said congressional approval is essential for U.S. overseas military actions and criticized him.
Early this year, when former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was arrested by U.S. forces, Trump also did not give Congress advance notice. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, "Under the Constitution, the authority to declare war and approve related actions rests solely with Congress."
The New York Times (NYT) reported, "Under the Constitution, only Congress has the power to formally declare war, and even Republican lawmakers in Congress this week sought to remind President Trump of that."