And he does not have the unilateral authority to do so.

The President of the United States does not have the unilateral authority to take this country to war. That power belongs to Congress — not as a technicality, but as a deliberate choice made by the founders who understood that military action carries consequences that outlast the moment the bombs fall.

We are already seeing those consequences. Three American service members are dead. Five more are seriously wounded. And reports are emerging that a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran was struck during these operations, killing over 165 people — students, parents, and staff. I am calling for a full, transparent investigation into that strike. If confirmed as a violation of international humanitarian law, it must be condemned without equivocation. Striking a school full of children is not a military objective. It is an atrocity — and it is precisely the kind of action that creates the next generation of people who hate America.

Before we commit to action of this magnitude, Congress must ask the hard questions: What is the objective? What does success look like? What are the escalation risks? Who are our allies, and do we have them? What happens the day after?

These are not obstructionist questions. They are the questions a serious democracy asks before going to war — and the Ohioans of the 7th district, who would bear the costs of a prolonged conflict, deserve that debate.

I also believe that how we fight matters as much as whether we fight. American military engagement carried out without legal and ethical guardrails does not make us safer. It fuels the very extremism we are trying to defeat, undermines our standing in the world, and makes the next conflict more likely, not less.

That standard applies to every partner — including Israel. As someone who cares deeply about Israel’s security and its future as a democratic state, I am not willing to look away from what happened in Gaza. The denial of humanitarian aid to a civilian population, the disregard for civilian lives, the blocking of food, medicine and water — these are not the actions of an ally acting within the bounds of international law. They are violations that have cost innocent lives, inflamed anti-American sentiment across the world, and made both Israel and the United States less safe. We cannot claim to stand for a rules-based international order while exempting our closest allies from its requirements. I will insist that U.S. military support for Israel be conditioned on full compliance with international humanitarian law. That is not abandoning Israel. That is demanding better of an ally we believe in — because the alternative is underwriting conduct that undermines everything we say we stand for.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its support for terrorist proxies, and its brutal repression of its own people — the imprisonment, torture, and killing of citizens who dare to dissent, of women who demand basic rights, of minorities who simply wish to exist — are real and serious dangers that demand a serious, strategic American response. But unilateral action without congressional authorization, without a clear justification rooted in law and fact, without a defined goal, without a plan for how we get there, and without an exit strategy for how we get out — is not serious. It is reckless — and recklessness has consequences we will be living with long after this administration is gone.

That is why I support the Khanna-Massie War Powers Resolution.