ANALYSIS: Congress Lets Its War Powers Expire — Complicit Silence While Trump Toys with Iran

A strike without a plan, a ceasefire without a treaty

The June operation targeted three sites: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The Pentagon called it an “operational success.” The IAEA described it as “partial destruction.” Iran spoke of “retaliation to come.” Trump spoke of a “historic victory” on Truth Social at 11:47 p.m., in all caps.

A few days later, an informal ceasefire took hold. No treaty. No signatures. No guarantees. Just a pause that no one negotiated and that anyone can break. It is in this gray area—neither peace nor war, neither authorization nor prohibition—that Congress has chosen to remain absent.

I write these lines thinking of a detail that haunts me. When Truman committed troops to Korea in 1950, he at least had the courage to seek UN authorization. When Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, he at least had the courage to lie to Congress to secure a vote. Trump didn’t even need to lie. He didn’t ask for anything. And no one demanded that he ask.

Iran is watching. China is taking notes.

Tehran is reading the Senate transcripts. So is Beijing. When Xi Jinping considers the possibility of an operation against Taiwan, he looks at how long it takes for a U.S. president to act unilaterally—and how long it takes for Congress to fail to react. The answer from June 2025 is clear: the president can strike, Congress can sleep, and the markets will take care of the rest.

This equation, as seen from Beijing, is an invitation. It suggests that U.S. decision-making is now a matter of presidential whim, not democratic deliberation. It suggests that allies must pray that the president’s phone is charged. It suggests that deterrence rests on one man.

Article I, Section 8, methodically gutted

“Congress shall have the power to declare war.” Seven words. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. The most solemn power ever entrusted to a legislature in modern history. And yet, since 1942, the United States has never again formally declared war. Korea. Vietnam. Grenada. Panama. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria. And now Iran. No declarations. Just “operations.”

Each time, the precedent expands. Each time, the seven words of the Constitution shrink. This erosion isn’t a spectacular betrayal. It’s a gradual erosion. A senator who doesn’t vote. A president who acts. A journalist who gets used to it. A citizen who moves on.

When James Madison wrote that the power to wage war should be entrusted to Congress, he explained why in a sentence that has haunted me ever since I read it at eighteen: “because the executive branch is most prone to war.” Madison knew. He had observed the kings of Europe. He had understood that men on their own, with armies at their disposal, cannot resist the temptation. He built a wall. The Senate of 2025 has just removed yet another brick.

A Republic Whose Checks and Balances Operate Part-Time

Checks and balances—the countervailing powers—are not an automatic mechanism. They are muscles. They atrophy when they are not used. The U.S. Congress in November 2025 has just proven that it has forgotten how to stand up to a president from its own party. It has forgotten that its role is not to protect a party, but to protect the people from the temptation of a single man.

And yet, six senators would have been enough. Six elected officials to remind us that a republic without debate is no longer quite a republic. Six absentees who now weigh heavily in the balance of history.

The Precedent That Will Outlive Trump

Trump will leave one day. The presidency, however, will remain. And every power he has wrested from Congress without resistance will become the default power of the next president—whether Democrat or Republican, moderate or extreme, competent or disastrous. Precedent makes no distinctions; it applies to the next president, whoever that may be.

The senators who let the November 2025 deadline slip by have just written a blank check to a president they don’t even know yet. Perhaps their grandchild will sign it. Surely, we will all pay for it.

I’ll conclude by reflecting on a word I usually avoid: betrayal. It’s not a journalistic term. It’s not a cautious choice of words. But when elected officials take an oath to defend the Constitution, and they let a constitutional deadline pass because voting would be politically costly, I can’t think of any other word. Not a spectacular betrayal. An office-bound betrayal—air-conditioned, polite, signed by absence. And that may be the worst of all.

The question that remains unanswered

We read this article. We scroll. We move on. And yet something has just been taken from each of us, without our being consulted, without our having been able to protest. Not a visible right. An invisible guarantee. The one that says a U.S. president cannot strike a country on his own, on a whim, at 11:47 p.m., in all caps.

That guarantee no longer exists. It hasn’t been abolished. It’s been forgotten. And in a democracy, forgetting is final.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist