It is no secret at this point that when a president does something consequential, Democrats base their opinion on it by the presidential political party. When Barack Obama dropped thousands of bombs on Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan without prior congressional approval, it was all good. But when Donald Trump takes out a dictator in Venezuela or bombs Iran, we have a constitutional crisis.
That’s the pattern the left can’t seem to shake. Leftists see everything through a partisan lens. It’s either an opportunity to boast about a Democrat being presidential or an opportunity to draft articles of impeachment against a Republican.
But there’s no doubt that Trump’s actions in Iran were constitutional, no matter what the left says.
During an interview on Newsmax on Sunday, Alan Dershowitz, the longtime liberal constitutional scholar, defended Trump’s military strike against Iran as both lawful and justified. There was nothing ambiguous about it: the president has the constitutional authority to act as commander in chief. At the same time, Congress retains only the power to declare war, not to micromanage it.
That distinction, Dershowitz noted, has been baked into the Constitution since James Madison deliberately narrowed Congress’s war powers authority. Madison and the framers understood that emergencies rarely wait for congressional debate. Article II gives the president command over the armed forces precisely for those moments when decisive action is required. That’s the flexibility that has kept the U.S. secure for nearly two and a half centuries.
Related: The Reason Trump Struck Iran That the Left Doesn’t Want You to Know
Of course, Democrats don’t mind presidential initiative when it serves their interests. Barack Obama, at the advice of Hillary Clinton, bombed in Libya without congressional authorization. Joe Biden similarly ordered drone bombings in Syria. Not once in those cases did the left scream “dictator!” or seek to limit presidential authority to launch strikes. They certainly didn’t draft new articles of impeachment. But Trump targets Iranian terror infrastructure, and suddenly the same Democrats who applauded Obama’s “leadership” are clutching their pearls over “abuse of power.”
Spare us.
Dershowitz went deeper, pointing out that the 1973 War Powers Resolution itself, which requires notifying Congress within 48 hours, has long raised constitutional doubts. He argued that it’s likely an overreach, substituting legislative micromanagement for executive responsibility. Presidents from both parties have treated it as “consultative,” not binding. The courts have consistently refused to intervene, declining every opportunity since Vietnam to declare presidential actions like this one illegal. In short, Dershowitz said, the claim that Trump’s strike violates U.S. law is “dead wrong.”
Yet that hasn’t stopped Democrats in Congress from rushing to the television cameras and crying foul, conveniently forgetting the fact that every Democratic president since World War II has initiated military actions without a formal declaration of war. Korea. Vietnam. Kosovo. Afghanistan. Iraq.
Dershowitz also pointed out that while these operations are controversial, they typically serve a broader national security purpose.
A surprise strike can, he noted, be “completely lawful, completely constitutional, and correct in terms of the national interest.” Sometimes, responding quickly prevents a larger war later. In that light, Trump’s decision looks not reckless but restrained—a targeted move aimed at restoring deterrence against a regime that has spent decades exporting terror and threatening global security.
So when Democrats claim that Trump’s actions were unconstitutional, remember the record. They cheered every strike that Obama ordered and shrugged at every attack Biden’s autopen authorized.
The left’s outrage now isn’t about constitutional authority. It’s politics, plain and simple.
