‘You’re not a dictator’: Trump rebuked for failing to inform Congress of Soleimani assassination

Donald Trump has suffered a stinging rebuke over his actions towards Iran from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which took to Twitter to remind the president: “You’re not a dictator.”

The panel, chaired by New York Democrat Eliot Engel, was responding to one of Mr Trump’s own tweets in which he warned Tehran against taking violent retribution against America in response to the killing of influential general Qassem Soleimani in a US air strike near Baghdad International Airport on Friday.

“These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any US person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” the president wrote on Sunday evening. “Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”

Parodying his aggressive legalese, the House committee responded: “This Media Post will serve as a reminder that war powers reside in the Congress under the United States Constitution. And that you should read the War Powers Act. And that you’re not a dictator.”

The act alluded to in the reprimand refers to a resolution introduced in 1973 in the wake of the Korean and Vietnam wars requiring any US president to actively seek the consent of Congress before launching the military into armed conflict.

While Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution recognises the president as the commander-in-chief of the army and navy, Article I, Section 8 leaves the responsibility for actually declaring war in the hands of elected representatives, therein ensuring the separation of powers.

Mr Trump signed off on the assassination of Soleimani – in an attack that also killed four members of the Popular Mobilization Forces including Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis – from his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago early in the new year, declining to inform Congress or other world leaders who can expect to suffer the consequences should Iran retaliate as it has threatened to do.

The president was similarly criticised in October for failing to brief House speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff – two members of Washington’s “gang of eight” – ahead of the operation to kill Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi​.

He has also repeatedly made the worrying and mistaken claim that Article II of the Constitution gives him “the right to do whatever I want as president”, notably during an address to conservative student activists at a Turning Point USA summit in July last year.

Chairman Engel used his own Twitter account to add his voice to the chorus of condemnation against Mr Trump’s recklessness, stating: “The American people don’t want war with Iran, and neither do I. We need to send a clear message to the White House: don’t plunge this country into an ill-conceived war against Iran.”

In the Middle East, Iranians have taken to the streets en masse to mourn the general’s death while the country’s technology minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi has labelled Mr Trump: “A terrorist in a suit”.