U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon is one of the many congressional Democrats denouncing President Trump’s military attack on Iran as unconstitutional.

They’re reminding the public that the country’s founding document “assigns decisions of war to Congress.”

As of March 2, at least six U.S. Service members have been killed in the military operation.

Both chambers of Congress are expected to vote this week on bipartisan war powers resolutions, which would limit the president’s ability to take further military action — in Iran and around the world — without congressional approval.

Even if passed, it would be largely symbolic as it’s unlikely Congress could muster a two-thirds majority needed to override an almost certain presidential veto.

Merkley, a long-time member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said he and other Democrats aim to stop military action in Iran and prevent similar actions in the future, which critics say is destabilizing the region and could potentially impact the entire international security order.

Merkley spoke with OPB’s “Think Out Loud” today.

Here are highlights from that conversation, edited for brevity and clarity:

On whether Iran posed an “imminent threat,” as Pres. Trump claimed

“Absolutely not. What we know is that [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu had said he wanted to destroy some of the ballistic missiles, the larger ballistic missiles that provided some threat to Israel, and was asking for U.S. permission. The U.S. was certainly in the position to say, ‘Uh, hell no. We’re not supporting you doing that.’ We have all kinds of leverage with Israel. But the way that [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio framed it was that we have no influence, and that essentially America was dragged into this war by Netanyahu. As if Netanyahu had led Trump around with a ring through his nose, that we were subservient, a puppet being controlled by the head of Israel. That is an outrageous explanation. Totally unacceptable.”

On what kinds of military actions he, as a member of Congress, would vote to authorize

“It would have to be an extraordinary set of circumstances involving an imminent threat to the United States, with the intelligence that I found enormously persuasive.

“I do believe that those instances are quite rare in the world … This conflict, this war was not launched in accordance with the Constitution. There was no request for authorization in advance, there was no imminent threat, and the president’s own explanation, or his Secretary of State’s explanation … doesn’t pass muster at all."

On the anticipated effect of the upcoming vote on the war powers resolutions in the Senate and House

“The most important aspect of this vote is that it puts people on record where they stand, and it creates a debate over the issues. It isn’t at all rising to the level of what Congress should be doing, which is holding a debate on an authorization before a war is launched. But under these circumstances, at least it creates a public debate and a vote to show where individuals stand, which allows the public, in a republic, to say, ‘Hey, member of Congress, my Senator, my House member, I like what you’re doing, or I don’t like what you’re doing.’ And that, in other words, at least it’s flexing the muscles of a democracy, even though we understand that in this case, it takes a simple majority.”

On his view of the best-case and worst-case scenarios now

“The worst case is an extended war with a significant loss of life, significant loss of treasure. Remember the Afghanistan and Iraq wars involved some 7,000 [U.S.] deaths, some 50,000 significant injuries, some $8 trillion in national treasure. That’s just on our side of the equation. So that’s the worst — an extended, extended war with massive losses that leads to chaos going forward. I think it’s important to remember that we had really had a relationship with Iran as an ally, and some would even characterize it as a friend, in the 1950s, until we decided to assassinate their elected prime minister. His name was [Mohammad] Mosaddegh.

“In the short term, that might have looked like a victory, but what did it lead to? It led to what is now 73 years of a highly unproductive relationship, with lots of problems for the United States, and so it’s just to my point that the aftermath of these types of actions is hard to predict.

“But the best case: We vote for the war powers resolution, shut this thing down, and immediately we go back to the negotiating table. We’ll resolve the issues over the nuclear program in Iran and they re-establish a leadership that is a whole lot better leadership than they had under the ayatollah.”

You can listen to the whole conversation with Sen. Jeff Merkley on “Think Out Loud” by clicking below.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/03/us-senator-jeff-merkley-iran-attack-shreds-constitution/