But if Iran retaliates and harms American forces in any major way, he will respond in kind and likely get congressional support to do so.
Discussing the war powers act is spurious.
To quote Machiavelli: “Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.”
You think Iran is going to be bombed and then… not retaliate?
I’m just trying to understand, because this sounds like magical thinking.
If you believe they are stupid enough to start a war with the United States, then denying them nuclear weapons was inherently the correct decision.
I think virtually every US President since Jimmy Carter when given the opportunity to destroy an enemy's nuclear weapons program after another country has decimated them would take it.
The existing narrative suggests that possessing nuclear weapons deters invasions, potentially motivating countries to develop nuclear capabilities as a means of securing their regimes.
Using military resources to prevent pariah countries from getting nuclear weapons and bombing them because they are putting together a nuclear weapons program turns that on it's head and sends the message that seeking to acquire nuclear weapons will make it less likely that your regime survives. Taking back that narrative makes us all safer and less likely that the world will end from thermonuclear war.
I'm going to take a second to cover some of the unintended consequences of this. First I'm going to point out that both Libya and Ukraine were disasters for non-proliferation. This (Iran) cements the fact that any regime, regardless of the cost or deal(s) with the Untied States, should absolutely develop nuclear weapons. If you're going to be bombed for NOT developing weapons, why would you actively NOT develop them? North Korea has them and has not been attacked - implying you must as rapidly as possible develop them, so as to not be attacked. The US will not save you if you give up your weapons (Libya, Ukraine), and will attack you if you aren't developing them (Iran). Therefore, get them ASAP, and never ever give them up is the obvious choice.
Let's take a second to look at the other logic here. You're saying that the country is "currently losing a full scale war" - the implication here is that the power imbalance will protect us.
I'm going to point out that "we can lose much in winning"; what if we win, but this new enemy flattens a few American cities, or sinks a carrier group? Being "big" isn't an invulnerability shield of some sort.
Doing this, we also potentially "burned" the stealth signature of both the F35 and the B2 - you don't think there were a handful of Chinese radars in that lot? Post processing of the radar data might allow our adversaries to come up with counters. Was it worth it? How will we feel about this if we discover later that they're both countered in a South China Sea/Taiwan dispute?
If this state is a "pariah", surely many countries will join us? No? Are we the "arsenal of Democracy" or did we turn our back on, say, Ukraine? Did we abide by all of our deals? Did our own intelligence show that they were a threat? Pariah states are those led by criminals, right? Totally unrelated, but wasn't Bibi on trial for corruption and scheduled to get cross examined in the next week or so? Pariah states threaten even allies, right? Like talking about invading Canada, or taking Greenland? They're led by criminals - would a convicted felon count? Just trying to be very clear here. Would a pariah state threaten their friends to extract concessions, or maybe illegally deploy the military, and let other criminals out of prison? Would a pariah state make Studio Ghibli images of crying women being arrested, "ASMR" videos of people in shackles, and promote them from official accounts? Who does this remind you of?
I posit this chain of actions made us, and the world less safe; this is an unmitigated disaster in every dimension.
If war was a physical fight, that what the US has done is a smack to the face, whereas an invasion might be a swing of a samurai sword. So, what we're doing here is getting worked up that a face slapping contest will transform into a sword fight.
This, "false dichotomy" retaliate=war, or not retaliate is warping things here. Yes, Iran will probably retaliate, but more likely a smack to the face than a strike of the sword. It ain't war yet, right now it's just a slap & a tickle.
Why did we fight so hard about that whole Pearl Harbor thing anyway, it was just a slap to the face. /s