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The United States has once again been dragged into a catastrophic war in the Middle East. The US military is now attacking Iran not because our nation faces an imminent threat but because the Israeli government has long sought confrontation with Tehran and has finally found a willing partner in Washington.

This war is unnecessary, unjustified, unconstitutional, in violation of international law and entirely against the will of the American public.

Under the constitution, the power to declare war rests with Congress, not the president. Therefore, President Donald Trump’s decision to launch air strikes and pursue regime change in another country without congressional authorisation is illegal. It echoes the darkest chapters of post-9/11 American foreign policy when fear and deception were used to rush our nation into disastrous wars, the price of which we are still paying today.

On the global scale, attacking a sovereign nation – or as wanted war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls it, launching a “preemptive strike” – without an imminent threat violates the United Nations Charter and fundamental principles of international law. The bombing campaign – which is taking place during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a time of increased spirituality and reflection – has already stained our national conscience.

On the first day of the war, a US air strike killed about 165 schoolgirls in the city of Minab. American weapons have once again made us complicit in the killing of children abroad.

And for what?

We are told this is about “security”. We are told this is about stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But we’ve heard this before. For more than 30 years, Netanyahu has insisted that Iran is “weeks away” from a nuclear bomb. Those weeks have stretched into decades. Fear has been recycled as policy.

Let’s also be honest about something else: Iran, with all its objectionable and often detrimental regional ambitions, is not an imminent military threat to the United States. The American public understands this. Poll after poll shows Americans are weary of endless wars in the Middle East. Our communities want investments in healthcare, education, infrastructure and job creation – not another trillion-dollar conflict that sends our soldiers into harm’s way and destabilises yet another region.

So why is an American president who campaigned on “America First” governing as if he embraces “Israel First”? Why are American troops, American tax dollars and American credibility being placed on the line to fulfil the longstanding ambitions of a foreign government?

This is not a healthy alliance. It is a toxic dynamic in which the United States provides money, weapons, diplomatic cover and unconditional political support while being dragged into wars that make us less safe.

We are told this war is about human rights. About women’s rights. But bombs do not liberate people. Air strikes do not advance democracy. Slaughtering schoolgirls is not “feminist” foreign policy.

If human rights were truly the concern, our government would not selectively apply them based on geopolitical convenience. Our own ally, Israel, is engaged in a genocide that has killed and wounded more than 200,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Not funding that mass murder of children would have been a good start for our humanitarian concerns.

And Americans are right to ask these questions. At a time when transparency and accountability are demanded at home, especially as it pertains to the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, why are we instead being thrust into another foreign war? The American people deserve honesty, not distraction.

This war will not bring stability. It will inflame the region, harm civilians, endanger US soldiers and potentially trigger a wider conflict with global consequences. It risks American lives and American security for objectives that do not serve the American public.

Congress had a chance to uphold its constitutional responsibility and stop unauthorised military escalation but failed to pass the war powers resolution sponsored by Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna. This vote reflects the strong influence of the Israeli lobbying group AIPAC and its money along with a troubling unwillingness by some lawmakers to stand up to powerful lobbying interests and unchecked executive power.

Congress, especially those members who claim to oppose endless wars, must continue pursuing every available avenue to reassert its authority and prevent further escalation; the stakes are far too high for elected officials to remain silent.

The American people do not want this war. It is time for our government to serve them, not the agenda of a foreign leader desperate to cling to power and evade accountability.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

United States President Donald Trump has again promised to exert influence over who is selected as Iran’s next Supreme Leader, saying that, without Washington’s approval, whoever is picked for the role is “not going to last long”.

The statement on Sunday came just hours after a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts said the clerical body had selected the replacement for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the hours after the US and Israel launched the war with Iran on February 28.

“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” Trump told ABC News, referring to a new supreme leader. “If he doesn’t get approval from us, he’s not going to last long.”

Trump added that he didn’t want future administrations to have “to go back” in the years ahead, an apparent reference to future military action.

“I don’t want people to have to go back in five years and have to do the same thing again, or worse, let them have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Officials in Iran, which has launched retaliatory attacks across the Middle East, have repeatedly rejected the notion of Washington asserting influence over the selection.

Earlier on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi again vowed “we will allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs”.

“This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader,” he said, adding that Iranians had elected the Assembly of Experts, which will select the next supreme leader.

Oman says nuclear talks were ‘making progress’

Trump’s comments came as the war entered its ninth day, with the death toll in Iran rising to 1,332, with at least 11 killed across the Gulf, 11 killed in Israel, and six US soldiers killed to date.

The US president has offered shifting justifications for the war, repeatedly pointing to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its ballistic missile programme, as well as the totality of Iran’s actions in the region since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Critics, including the majority of Democratic US lawmakers, have said Trump has provided scant evidence to prove Iran posed an immediate threat.

On Sunday, Oman Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who had been overseeing indirect US-Iran talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, again rejected US officials’ claims that Tehran had not entered into the negotiations in good faith.

Speaking during a ministerial meeting of the Arab League, Albusaidi said diplomatic initiatives seeking a “fair and honourable solution were making progress” when the US-Israeli attacks began.

He further warned that the region is facing “a dangerous turning point” as fighting escalates.

‘Short-term disruption’

Attacks from both sides appeared to have widened, with the US and Israel for the first time striking oil storage and refining facilities in Tehran, and Iran launching more strikes across the Gulf, including a drone attack that caused material damage to a desalination plant in Bahrain.

Both Bloomberg and Axios news have reported that the US and Israel have considered a special ground operation to seize Iran’s enriched uranium, with Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter telling CBS’s Face the Nation news programme that securing the nuclear fuel is “on our radar screen and we’re going to take care of it”.

For their part, top Trump administration officials spent Sunday seeking to alleviate concerns over the war’s knock-on effects on global oil and gas prices.

Rapidly rising prices represent a particular political vulnerability for Trump as his Republican Party faces legislative midterm elections in November.

Speaking to Fox News, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the administration was responding to what she called a “short-term disruption”.

She said the administration was “tapping into our newfound market in Venezuela”, referring to access US companies had gained to the South American country’s oil industry in the wake of the January 3 US abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

Energy experts have said that rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry would likely be a multi-year process, and have questioned what immediate impact it could have in offsetting current shortages.

Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation, Energy Secretary Chris Wright also maintained that the war would not drag on and that any economic fallout would be fleeting.

Trump, who came into office vowing to end so-called “endless wars”, has said the operations against Iran could last “four to five weeks”, but he also said the conflict has “no time limit”.

Wright pointed to “a temporary period of elevated energy prices”, but denied there was an energy shortage “at all in the Western Hemisphere”.

He also underscored that the US has 400 million gallons of oil in the strategic oil reserves and the administration is “more than happy to use that if it’s needed”.

“What you want is emotional reactions and fear that this is a long-term war,” Wright said. “This is not a long-term war; it’s a temporary movement.”