(NBC) – President Donald Trump may not need Congress to go to war with Iran. That’s the case his lieutenants have been quietly building as tensions between the two nations have escalated. The key elements involve drawing links between al Qaeda and Iran and casting Iran as a terrorist threat to the U.S. — which is exactly what administration officials have been doing in recent weeks. That could give Trump the justification he needs to fight Iran under the still-in-effect 2001 use-of-force resolution without congressional approval. That prospect is unsettling to most Democrats, and even some Republicans, in
part because there is a reluctance to engage U.S. forces in another theater of war, and in part because many lawmakers believe Congress has given too much of its war-making authority to the president over the years. With Congress unlikely to grant him new authority to strike Iran under the current circumstances, and amid a campaign of “maximum pressure” against the regime in Tehran that has escalated tension between the two countries, Trump administration officials have sent strong signals that they will be ready to make an end run around lawmakers, using the 2001 authorization for the use of military force — or “AUMF” in Washington-speak — if necessary. READ MORE
