What are we to make of the present actions taken in Iran? It increasingly appears that regardless of which party holds the presidency, the executive branch continues to involve the nation in foreign conflicts with little meaningful restraint. Though I sympathize deeply with the Iranian people, the President ought not to wield the power to initiate violent action against another nation without the clear consent of the people through their representatives in Congress. 



The Constitution vested the power to declare war in the legislature for precisely this reason to prevent the concentration of such grave authority in a single office. This conflict also appears to lack broad public support, even among many within the President’s own political coalition. 



A republic cannot long endure if the decision to wage war is divorced from the will of the citizenry. The classical liberal in me asks several simple but essential questions: Is the threat real and immediate? Is there genuine domestic consensus? What will be the human cost? What will be the economic burden?



If our system of checks and balances is to remain meaningful, we must ask what reforms are necessary to restrain executive overreach and restore the constitutional order intended by the founders. Beyond discussion alone, what practical changes might ensure that the power to take the nation to war is once again exercised with the deliberation and consent that a free republic demands?

Trump’s Unauthorized Strikes on Iran Take America’s Imperial Presidency to New Heights