Should Congress debate and decide whether the U.S. should strike Iran?

[outside shooter]

...there are times when a President needs to act without Congressional approval.

And those times are spelled out: when our interests are directly under attack or there is a clear imminent fact-supported threat of an attack on the US or on US facilities/ bases /interests. The commander in chief has broad "emergency response" authority.

Not at all the case here. There is no emergency to respond to. A clear overreach of power, granted, an overreach that other presidents have also gotten away with

 

[BradStevens]

Interesting result. I'm assuming given the numbers, those here who identify as conservative are split on the issue.

 

[outside shooter]

When you give presidents too much power, sooner or later both sides of the aisle will be upset, just (mostly) not at the same time

 

[The Original Happy Goat]

I hate to always reduce American military intervention to a Sorkinism (@Marvin the Martian), but I think Leo's advice to Bartlet about assassinating the defense minister is genuinely instructive. In response to Bartlet saying it's "just wrong," Leo says, "I know, but you have to do it, anyway." "Why?" "Because you won."

It's pretty easy to characterize a number of things we've done since the beginning of the war on terror (and honestly, since long before that) as clearly illegal under either US or international law (or both). But that doesn't mean they weren't justified or even necessary. We are the world's policeman now, and that might mean that our President simply can't be constrained by legalities. Is anyone sad we killed Soleimani? Does his death save future lives? Was his assassination nonetheless illegal? I think the answers to those questions are pretty obvious.

I see no analog in American history that would legally justify this week's strikes against Iran, but if we truly believed a nuclear Iran is a danger to world peace, and we truly believed we had the capability to prevent that, the argument can be made that we simply did what we had to do.

Please note I'm not endorsing this view of presidential powers. I'm just pointing out that it exists, and it can be logically defended.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

I agree with that point but that has been every president's justification forever.

As with Bartlett, calling in the congressional leaders and giving them the lowdown is better than nothing.