Constitutionally, Trump has no authority to launch another war. The Constitution gives that power to Congress. When President Obama launched attacks against the Islamic State, his administration cited a law Congress passed on September 18, 2001, which authorized force against “those nations, organizations, or persons” involved in 9/11. That was dubious enough, given that the Islamic State didn’t exist in 2001. But claiming that authorization justifies striking Syria for using chemical weapons is absurd.

So absurd, in fact, that when the Trump administration attacked Syria last year, it didn’t even pretend that Congress had given it the go-ahead. Instead, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “The President authorized that strike pursuant to his power under Article II of the Constitution as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to use this sort of military force overseas to defend important U.S. national interests.” Even previous presidents, noted Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, who ran the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under George W. Bush, had not asserted such sweeping authority. The Trump administration’s claims, he argued, “provide no practical limitation on presidential power.”

It’s not surprising that a president who thinks the Justice Department should act as his personal law firm, and the FBI should act as his personal security detail, would claim unlimited personal authority to wage war. But it’s especially disturbing because Trump’s motivations for launching a war are more suspect than those of any president in modern history. One of his biographers, Gwenda Blair, has noted “his trademark tactic of distraction and misdirection”—his career-long habit of launching dramatic stunts or spats to turn attention away from unpleasant news. In March, former CIA Director John Brennan—who is not given to hyperbole—warned that Trump might “try to distract the attention here domestically and politically on him and engage in some type of international initiative that is going to really put our nation at risk.”

It would be wrong for Congress to allow any president, on his own authority, to launch an attack on Syria that potentially puts the U.S. in conflict with Russia, Iran, or both. But granting that power to Trump—as he contemplates a second Saturday Night Massacre—is utter lunacy.

Yet with a few exceptions like Senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul, Republicans in Congress appear determined to do just that. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared on Monday: “If the administration goes against [Assad], which I hope they will, I think it will be something very surgical. That is not something that, to me, warrants an AUMF [Authorization of Use of Military Force].” It’s comforting that Corker can read Trump’s mind. Let’s just hope his definition of “surgical” is the same as Vladimir Putin’s.