President Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” only to plunge the United States into World War I months later. Donald Trump rivals Wilson for a head-snapping change of posture by a president. So much for ending the “forever wars.”

Iran’s nuclear ambitions have long been a threat, and the Brennan Center doesn’t opine on the merits or consequences of foreign policy decisions. But last weekend’s U.S. bombing of Iran, carried out under these circumstances, can happen only with the authorization of Congress.

Once again, Donald Trump has shown contempt for the constitutional order. And once again, called on to react, Congress seems poised to bend the knee.

Concerns about untrammeled presidential power led Congress to enact the War Powers Resolution in 1973 after the trauma of the Vietnam War. It recognizes that the president may use military force only when a war is declared, after Congress passes an authorization of military force, or when there is a “national emergency created by attack” against the United States. In such an emergency, the resolution requires the president to consult with Congress “in every possible instance.” It also requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours and to terminate operations if Congress has not authorized military use within 60 days.

Many presidents chafed at these restrictions. But when it came to major military action, they followed them. George H. W. Bush secured congressional authorization before the Gulf War in 1991. George W. Bush won congressional approval for the Iraq War. Congress authorized the military response to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

To be clear, presidents of both parties have ordered military action without approval, often citing the limited nature of the operations. But the strike in Iran was hardly a raid against a terrorist cell. This was an attack on the military infrastructure of a country with 93 million people. It has sponsored terrorism for decades, deployed proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and dominated Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. It has, in short, capacity to respond and a record of aggression. At the time of the attack, a wide range of consequences was possible. Wars rarely unfold as anticipated. As former Defense Secretary James Mattis has observed, “The enemy gets a vote.”

There was no “national emergency created by attack.” Indeed, calling it an emergency of any kind is surely a stretch. Trump’s own director of national intelligence recently testified that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” Vice President JD Vance explained, rather cryptically and definitely worryingly, “Of course we trust our intelligence community, but we also trust our instincts.”

Trump’s defenders fall back to the broadest and weakest legal justification. This is all part, they say, of his power as commander in chief of the military. A terse letter to Congress last night explained that the attack was needed “to advance vital United States interests, and in collective self-defense of our ally, Israel.” That was about the extent of the rationale given.

We must understand this as part of Trump’s headlong drive to vastly expand presidential power. Already, claiming spurious emergencies, Trump has illegally imposed sweeping tariffs and used the Alien Enemies Act to strip migrants of due process. As David Frum, who expressed support for striking Iran, noted, “Trump has not put U.S. boots on the ground to fight Iran, but he has put U.S. troops on the ground for an uninvited military occupation of California.” And my colleague Katherine Yon Ebright notes, Trump says bombing Iran is not a war — but insists that immigration violations and drug dealing by a criminal gang is. And we all know that wartime, real or imagined, offers many new chances to trample on rights and amass power.

Courts are not likely to step up. Rarely if ever have they intervened to stop a president’s war-making power.

No, Congress must be the principal check on an out-of-control executive. It can invoke the War Powers Resolution and vote on whether future military intervention in Iran is authorized. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), has already introduced an Iran War Powers Resolution in the House and Senate. The measure must be brought for a vote. House Speaker Mike Johnson called the measure “all politics.”

Without a supine Congress, we could not have an imperial presidency. Lawmakers are practiced at ducking responsibility, fretting, and orating, but they’re secretly relieved that someone else is acting and taking the heat. That’s one big reason why Congress has ceded its war-making authority.

James Madison said it well, writing to Thomas Jefferson in 1798: “The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature.”