When President Trump launched the Iran War at the end of February, I characterized the entire enterprise as “unconstitutional, unwise, and a betrayal of his promise to put the interests of the American people first.” I was particularly incensed by how his behavior in the days and hours before the start of the bombing campaign dispensed even with the pretense that the American people, and their elected representatives, should have any say over when and whether the United States waged war.

The alleged end of the Iran conflict offers yet another reminder of how far we have strayed from the standard set forth in the Constitution. Some of the very same people who argued that Congress should take no position on the Iran War – including the congresspeople and senators who cast votes to that effect – are now arguing that the president cannot unilaterally declare an end to conflict.

So, to recap, for those scoring at home: Ending a war requires an extraordinarily high threshold, including sustained diplomatic effort, broad domestic political consensus, and agreements durable enough to survive changes in administration. Starting a war requires none of these things.

This gets it completely backwards. And it is one of reasons why U.S. foreign policy has had a “fire, ready, aim” character about it for much of the past quarter century. To restore some semblance of balance in the policy toolkit between force and diplomacy, we need to make it harder to wage war, and easier to make peace.

The fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama administration’s successful effort to severely limit Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, is instructive here. Critics of the deal point to its collapse as evidence that it was fatally flawed — unratified, and therefore unstable. Indeed, opponents of Obama’s efforts drafted legislation requiring future presidents to submit any agreement pertaining to Iran’s nuclear program to Congress for review. Such a deal could only be blocked, however, by a supermajority in both houses (i.e. able to override a presidential veto). The JCPOA was never going to be ratified by a Republican-controlled Congress with Obama in the White House, but Congress lacked the votes to stop the JCPOA from going into effect.

But requiring a congressional vote for any diplomatic agreement sets the bar too high, and especially when Congress has abdicated its war powers. If that is the standard in our highly polarized political environment, then no American president will be able to confidently negotiate with any country. Adversaries are likely, then, to conclude that there is little point in diplomacy with Washington, because the next administration can walk away.

This sorry state of affairs – war easy, peace hard – also hands too much power over to veto players who are not parties to an agreement. Indeed, the start of the Iran conflict appears to be a classic case of allied entanglement, a situation in which the United States became involved in a war that it otherwise might have avoided. In the early days of the war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Speaker Mike Johnson both said that U.S. officials, once they had become aware of Israeli plans to attack Iran, felt compelled to strike as a “defensive” measure. A failure to act, they contended, would have exposed U.S. military personnel stationed on bases in the region to grave danger.

Granted, Trump administration officials quickly backed away from this claim, and the ultimate blame for U.S. involvement falls squarely at the President Trump’s feet, precisely because he chose not to involve Congress beforehand. But if the deal ultimately collapses – if, for example, Israel resumes its attacks on Lebanon – the United States would once again be presented with a difficult dilemma. And, indeed, Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum have already gone on record with their opposition to a deal – even before the details were made public. 

Peace should never be this hard to make, or this easy to undo. But we can start by restoring Congress’s proper role as a check on presidential power and crafting meaningful, practical steps – for example, removing U.S. forces from harm’s way – that reduce the likelihood of Americans being killed in any war that fails to pass the “Is it worth it?” test.