\n<\/p>\n
The US launched a major military campaign against Iran on Saturday, striking targets across the country as part of what the administration of President Donald Trump has named Operation Epic Fury.<\/p>\n
The escalation has already resulted in casualties, growing regional tensions and instability in the region.<\/p>\n
As the strikes continue, we ask: Is the United States now effectively at war with Iran? Why did Washington decide to attack? And could the conflict expand to include US ground troops?<\/p>\n
Here is what we know so far:<\/p>\n
In Iran, at least 787 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.<\/p>\n
Six Americans have been killed in action and 18 service members have been injured, as the US continues its strikes on Iran and Iran counterattacks, sending missiles and drones at Israel and US assets in the region.<\/p>\n
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a projectile breached air defences and struck a fortified US military position. He did not disclose the location of the facility, but reports indicated that the casualties occurred in Kuwait.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have air defences and a lot coming in, and you hit most of it, and we absolutely do. We have incredible air defenders,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery once in a while, you might have one, unfortunately \u2013 we call it a \u2018squirter\u2019 \u2013\u00a0 that makes its way through, and in that particular case, it hit a tactical operations centre,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In Iran, the deadliest single reported incident occurred in the southeastern city of Minab, where a strike hit an elementary school for girls. At least 165 students were killed.<\/p>\n
The US Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to declare war, but the president serves as commander-in-chief with the authority to respond to immediate threats.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Constitution says in Article I, Section 8, that Congress has the authority to declare war,\u201d David Schultz, a professor in the political science and legal departments at Hamline University, explained to Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cArticle II says that the president is commander in chief,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Because of this framework, modern presidents can bypass formal declarations by labelling military actions as defensive or emergency measures.<\/p>\n
In fact, \u201cthe last time the US formally declared war was World War II\u201d, Schultz explained, while conflicts such as in Vietnam and Iraq were fought without a formal declaration.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I would argue that if we look at the history of the US, the vast majority of conflicts have not been formally declared wars, but presidents have dragged us into them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which attempts to limit unilateral presidential military action to 60 days.<\/p>\n
Under the law, the president must also notify Congress within 48 hours of hostilities beginning.<\/p>\n
Trump notified Congress of the strikes, telling lawmakers the threat from Iran had become \u201cuntenable\u201d despite efforts to reach a diplomatic solution, even though Oman \u2013 which was mediating between the US and Iran \u2013 had said that the parties were close to a deal.<\/p>\n
Democratic lawmakers have challenged the justification for the strikes and raised concerns about potential violations of the War Powers Resolution.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the difference between an \u201cattack\u201d and a \u201cwar\u201d often comes down to duration and intensity, Paul Quirk, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmericans will call it an attack if it\u2019s brief,\u201d Quirk added. \u201cBut if, as appears likely, it continues for weeks or months, then it becomes a war in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has provided several key reasons for the attack:<\/p>\n
Trump and Vice President JD Vance have explicitly stated that a primary goal is ensuring Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal of the strikes is to eliminate the Iranian nuclear programme once and for all,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
However, the administration has not provided evidence for the claim that Iran was close to having a nuclear weapon before the US launched its attacks. In fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said \u2014 as recently as yesterday \u2014 that it had no evidence that Iran even had a nuclear weapons programme.<\/p>\n
The US argues that the strikes were a proactive, defensive measure to prevent Iran from attacking US troops, bases, and allies. In fact, the attacks have triggered a fusillade of missiles and drones fired by Iran against Gulf nations that host US troops.<\/p>\n
Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that the US acted because Israel had been preparing its own military strike on Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that there was going to be an Israeli action\u2026 and we knew that if we didn\u2019t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n
However, experts say the administration\u2019s messaging has not been consistent.<\/p>\n
Trump himself has contradicted Rubio. At a media interaction on Tuesday, he said that the US attacked Iran because he thought Tehran was going to strike first.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know what the administration\u2019s goals are. They\u2019ve been all over the map,\u201d Christopher Preble, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
Trump has also openly called for the Iranian people to \u201ctake over\u201d their government and \u201cseize control of your destiny\u201d.<\/p>\n
An objective of the campaign has also been to dismantle Iranian support for groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n
So far, the US has relied on air and naval strikes, and there has been no formal announcement of a ground invasion. But Trump has not ruled out the possibility.<\/p>\n
When asked directly whether US troops could be deployed in Iran, Trump said he would \u201cnever say never\u201d, adding that the administration would do \u201cwhatever is necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n
Experts say air strikes alone are unlikely to permanently end Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, which Tehran insists has always been of a peaceful nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot destroy, demolish, eradicate any country\u2019s nuclear capabilities. They always have the ability to reconstitute,\u201d Preble said.<\/p>\n
If the US were to deploy ground troops, however, the scale of the challenge \u2014 whether Trump\u2019s goal is targeting Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities, missiles, or imposing regime change \u2014\u00a0would be significant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difference, if you compare Iran to Iraq in 2003, is that it\u2019s a country three to four times larger than Iraq was at the time,\u201d Preble said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US never had sufficient troops in Iraq to fully pacify the country\u2026 and the US doesn\u2019t have that many troops today to prevent a nation the size of Iran from descending into chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US 2003 invasion of Iraq toppled leader Saddam Hussein within weeks, but the subsequent occupation turned into a years-long insurgency that required more than 150,000 American troops at its peak.<\/p>\n
Any ground operation, experts say, would be extremely difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would make the US mission in Iraq look simple by comparison,\u201d Preble added. \u201cAnd of course, the Iraq mission was not simple. It would be extraordinarily costly and potentially very protracted \u2013 mostly for the people of Iran, but also for American service members.\u201d<\/p>\n
This depends on three main factors: military resources, funding and political will.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers could compel the Trump administration to scale back or end operations by passing a resolution to block the continuation of the campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether Democrats can persuade enough Republicans to break ranks remains uncertain, especially given the narrow Republican majority in both chambers,\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s Rosiland Jordan reported from Washington, DC.<\/p>\n
Military capacity is another limiting factor. Stockpiles of missiles, precision-guided munitions, interceptor systems and other equipment are finite.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless defence contractors are actively producing and replenishing supplies under Pentagon contracts, those stockpiles will eventually be drawn down,\u201d Jordan added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US launched a major military campaign against Iran on Saturday, striking targets across the country as part of what the administration of President Donald Trump has named Operation Epic Fury. The escalation has already resulted in casualties, growing regional tensions and instability in the region. As the strikes continue, we ask: Is the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explained"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}