How to Stop a War

This story was updated on January 9, 2020 at 8:30am.

Following the U.S. drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani last week, and the Iranian strikes on an Iraqi base housing U.S. troops earlier this week, the conflict between the United States and Iran appears to be teetering on a knife’s edge. The president did not request or receive authorization from Congress before taking the strike, and many are now calling on Congress to step up and do something to prevent the country from sliding into full-blown war. With the immediate crisis possibly defused—for the moment—now is the time for Congress to engage, and it has a number of tools at its disposal to do so.

As a formal matter, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. Most legal experts agree that the president holds some Article II power to act in self-defense against a truly imminent attack. But the U.S. government has yet for the president to use force when the risk of escalation is minimal, a justification that is not a reasonable option here.With , a consensus appears to be emerging among war-powers scholars that the Soleimani strike was illegal.