Donald the Dove’s bombing of Iran lacks any legal authority

If I may once again be forgiven to invoke such quaint anachronisms, Bush’s Bush’s logical successor’s bombing of Iran is not, how you say, legal:

The problem here is that if Congress won’t assert its authority, which it certainly won’t in this case, the legal questions become immaterial on the ground. The combination of an immense standing army and completely supine legislative majorities render any constitutional checks and balances moot.

I cannot be brought to believe that this country will suffer if the Court refuses further to aggrandize the presidential office, already so potent and so relatively immune from judicial review, at the expense of Congress.

But I have no illusion that any decision by this Court can keep power in the hands of Congress if it is not wise and timely in meeting its problems. A crisis that challenges the President equally, or perhaps primarily, challenges Congress. If not good law, there was worldly wisdom in the maxim attributed to Napoleon that “The tools belong to the man who can use them.” We may say that power to legislate for emergencies belongs in the hands of Congress, but only Congress itself can prevent power from slipping through its fingers…

–Robert Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer