On 28th February 2026, the United States went to war. No congressional debate. No public deliberation. No formal declaration. Just a midnight operation, with top lawmakers notified only minutes before the bombs fell, announcing that American aircraft were already striking Tehran. This is not how a republic wages war. This is how a king does.
The strikes on Iran — codenamed Operation Epic Fury— killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and multiple senior officials, put American lives in harm’s way without a single vote of the people’s representatives, and shook global energy markets to their foundations.
Article I of the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. Trump did it anyway. And in doing so, he did not merely break a rule — he broke the foundational compact of American self-governance.
The White House’s legal rationale was collective self-defence under the UN Charter. But the United States was not under attack. Iran had not struck American soil. Administration officials released conflicting statements about the aims of the operation, ranging from ending Iran’s nuclear program to outright regime change — language that has no grounding in any congressional mandate or democratic debate. As Senator Andy Kim told TIME, lawmakers and the American public were being asked to accept military escalation without understanding the endgame: “The President has really boxed us in and put us on the hook for things that we haven’t discussed as a country.” When senators demanded classified briefings, they largely received stonewalling. What followed was not strategic clarity but performative chaos: on the same day his administration surged forces to the region, Trump posted on social media about winding down. He threatened to bomb Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz was not opened on his timetable.
And when asked about rising gas prices, he shrugged: *”If they rise, they rise.”* These are not the words of a commander-in-chief accountable to a republic. They are the words of a man who believes he answers to no one.
Dissent has come from across the political spectrum, which is precisely what makes the administration’s contempt for Congress so damning. [Senator Chris Van Hollen]() called it plainly: “Trump is lying to the American people as he launches an illegal, regime-change war against Iran. This is endangering American lives and has already resulted in mass civilian casualties.” Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie declared: “This is not ‘America First.’ The Constitution conferred the power to declare or initiate war to Congress for a reason — to make war less likely.” Army veteran and Ohio Republican Warren Davidson said simply: “War requires Congressional authorization.” These are conservatives honouring their oath, not partisans playing politics. And yet the war powers resolutions they championed failed to override a presidential veto, as most Republicans fell in line. Senator Tim Kaine’s warning now hangs over every future presidency: “Don’t hide under your desk and just let the president do it on his own. Because if you do, you’re opening the door for presidents of either party into the future just to wage war willy-nilly.”
The human cost is already devastating — over 1,400 Iranians killed, thirteen American soldiers dead — and the economic cost is being borne by the entire world. Brent crude surpassed $126 per barrel at its peak, its highest level in years. The Strait of Hormuz — through which 20 percent of global oil supplies flow — was effectively closed, and QatarEnergy, responsible for 20 percent of the world’s LNG supply, declared force majeure on all exports. Global stocks fell 5.5 percent in the war’s opening days. Inflation is forecast to rise across the eurozone, the United States, and Asia simultaneously, presenting central banks with the spectre of stagflation — while the president who lit the fuse demands that the Federal Reserve cut interest rates.
Families in Chicago and Chennai, in Lagos and London, are absorbing the price of a decision made by one man without asking anyone’s permission.
The World Economic Forum put the deeper betrayal into words: the United States “has imposed enormous costs on many of the same economies it relies on as trading and strategic partners.” Allies were not consulted. The democratic world was not asked. And yet it is paying, country by country, household by household, for a war it did not vote for and cannot stop. This matters far beyond economics. The United States built the post-war international order on the premise that even the most powerful nation would operate within rules and seek legitimacy before using force. When that premise collapses, the argument for democratic governance in an age of strongmen collapses with it. A world with kings — whether in Moscow, Beijing, or Washington — is a more dangerous world for everyone.
The phrase “No Kings” is not a slogan invented by the left. It is the founding premise of the American republic, inscribed in the separation of powers and in a Constitution written by men who had lived under a monarchy and refused to recreate one. This war is the most dramatic breach of that premise yet — but not the first. Trump launched strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last year without a congressional vote. He ordered the capture of Venezuela’s president without one.
Each unchallenged act of unilateral power makes the next easier. This is how republics die — not in a single dramatic moment, but in the slow accumulation of precedents no one stopped in time.
On March 28, over 3,000 No Kings protests are scheduled across every state in this country. Join them. Bring your neighbors. Bring your children, so they can see what democracy looks like when citizens defend it. This is not a partisan call — it is a constitutional one, and it belongs to everyone who believes that in America, the people decide. Not one man. Not a king.
We have tried kings before. We know how it ends.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
