Congress has the sole right to declare war according to the Constitution.

Any action has consequences that must be considered and carefully planned for. Just because an action is legal, just because an action is righteous, just because an action is expedient does not mean that it should be taken or even permitted to be taken if the consequences of that action can result in undermining our geopolitical interests, exposing our country to undue risk, or risk attainment of major American goals. The Soleimani strike conducted where, when and how is was conducted, was impulsive and frankly stupid. The easily foreseen consequences are a newly-unified Iranian people in their hatred of American imperialism, who days before were openly questioning their own governance in a way that would have resulted in the concessions that trump has wanted. The Iraqi’s voted to have Americans removed from their country. Our NATO allies are pissed because they were not given prior notification of the strike. Our allies are at increased risks from an Iranian theocracy re-engaging in nuclear armaments with the newfound support of their populace. Our allies are in immediate jeopardy of retaliatory strikes on their homelands where American military interests are housed. trump was presented a list of possible re-actions to take in response to the storming of our US embassy in Iraq, and he chose the most severe on the list, the Soleimani strike without considering the consequences. In his typical shoot first, then rationalize and defend his decision after the fact approach- he claimed Soleimani was planning near term major attacks, something that our intelligence agencies did not seem to know about beforehand, having stated immediately after, that there was no heightened chatter or indications of any immanent threat. In testimony to Congress even trump’s enablers in the trumpublican party were outraged when they were told, ‘just trust us- we need a show of unity’, apparently because they could not justify trump’s claims. Iran showed remarkable restraint in it’s rocket attacks, apparently targeting areas that would not risk American lives and leaking details that gave our troop’s hours notice to get to cover- I would bet this was done so that trump could not claim that this was the immanent threat that he, after the fact, tried to claim was the rationale for authorizing Soleimani’s execution. I do not think this is over. Congress needs to re-assert it’s legal ability to authorize military actions with significant geopolitical risks. Our Congressional committees must be notified before the Israeli government or fellow golfers at Mara LOCO; I would think that better options would have been taken. Just a reminder, neither trump nor any president is ever elected to ‘run’ our country- they are elected to ‘represent’ the people of this country, whose collective needs and desires are represented by the House primarily and the Senate to assure States rights are considered. Trump is becoming increasingly unstable, controls are needed. He should be removed from office because he is needlessly endangering us all.

Starting wars is not up to the President; it's up to Congress. The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) from 2001 was meant to pursue the terrorists of 9/11, not for expanding military actions throughout the Middle East and against any country or group suspected of terrorism. Congress has ceded way too much power to the presidency in the past 20 years and it has to stop: we don't want a dictator or king. It's time to revoke the AUMF and write new laws around starting war. America cannot afford another war and we cannot continue to pursue military action for any reason chosen by any president.