Think of what it would mean to the world, to Iran, to Iraq, and to ourselves if Congress officially declared the president fit for removal for his bloodthirsty, reckless, unconstitutional act of war. If the Democratic House sent an article of impeachment to the Senate, with even so much as a glimmer of a chance of conviction.
The US military’s missile strike against a high-ranking Iranian military official in Iraq violates official policy against assassination and constitutes a major act of war. The president did it without a congressional declaration of war.
Congress can stop the horrifying catastrophe-in-the-making of war with Iran—and possibly beyond—right now. If it wants to.
Please call your representative and ask for public support for impeachment on an unconstitutional act of war, on a reckless act of war, and on the use of assassination.
Regarding declaration of war power, in my view, the War Powers Resolution is an unconstitutional abdication of responsibility that Article I, Section 8 explicitly assigned to Congress. (Note how in the 1990s Congress tried to give the president the “line item veto” for budget resolutions, and the Supreme Court struck it down.) Impeachment, unreviewable by any court or other official body, can supersede the resolution.
Even if one were to set that aside, a Congress that wanted to could find that the killing of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani was not a necessary response to a “national emergency” as specified by the War Powers Resolution.
Meanwhile, Executive Order 12333, which technically still stands, forbids assassination as a matter of official policy.
Regardless of all of that, “high crimes and misdemeanors” are not strictly limited to statutory offenses or even to constitutional violations. They encompass crimes of office: abuse of power, gross negligence, gross incompetence, corruption, recklessness, and other offenses related to the misuse of official authority and failures of responsibility. The president’s act fits those criteria that merit removal… if Congress wants it to.
If Congress wants to save the lives of many Iranians, Iraqis, and Americans, and possibly save the world from destructive war, they will impeach over this act and stop this madness.