David Schultz, a professor of political science and legal studies at Minnesota-based Hamline University, told the BBC: “Just because other presidents haven’t invoked it [the 1973 law] doesn’t mean that what Trump is doing here is correct.”
He added: “Here, Trump has basically committed us to combat without any support from Congress.
“And if we go back to the founding of this country, go back 1776, 1787, one of the fears that our framers had was strong executives committing us to wars without the support of the legislative branch.”
Trump has frequently pointed out that the Iran hostilities have been short compared with other conflicts, citing the wars in Vietnam (19 years), Iraq (nearly nine years), World War Two (six years) and Korea (three years).
But with Washington and Tehran still deadlocked over control of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear programme, Trump’s off-ramp from the conflict is unclear.
As Obama said in 2014 of the US war in Afghanistan: “It’s harder to end wars than it is to begin them.”