The United States and Iran had engaged in diplomatic talks on Iran’s nuclear program as recently as Thursday, and had agreed to more discussions this week. But on Saturday, the U.S. targeted Iranian military sites and government buildings in airstrikes, killing key officials, including Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said that he had not received any indication that “Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of pre-emptive strike against the United States of America.” ImageWhen the president commits American forces to a war of choice, he needs to come before Congress and the American people and ask for a declaration of war,” Mr. Warner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democratic member of the Armed Services Committee, echoed Mr. Warner, calling the U.S. military campaign “an illegal war” on “Fox News Sunday.” He said that Iran was about “a decade” away from building missiles that could reach the United States, dismissing Mr. Trump’s assertion that an Iranian threat was imminent. The United States Constitution gives Congress the exclusive authority to declare war and to regulate the use of military force, though it designates the president as the commander in chief of the armed forces. To establish a clear limit on presidents’ authority on the use of force abroad, Congress passed a law in 1973 that restricted military action without congressional approval to “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” The law, the War Powers Act, requires the president to consult with Congress “in every possible instance” before conducting military action abroad, and it limits the unilateral use of force to 60 days.https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/world/middleeast/democrats-question-trumps-urgency-to-attack-iran.html Beloud