A bipartisan group of senators passed a resolution Thursday that would limit President Trump’s ability to use military force against Iran.
The measure, which passed 55-45, with eight GOP votes, showcased a growing unease among congressional lawmakers with the executive branch’s authority to wage military action abroad. The vote comes more than a month after a drone strike earlier this year killed a top Iranian general and sparked retaliatory missile strikes against U.S. forces in Iraq.
The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, attracted Republican co-sponsors who, along with all Democrats, provided the majority coalition of votes needed to pass the resolution.
The resolution will ultimately serve only as a messaging tool. The House will vote on the resolution when it returns from a weeklong recess, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Thursday.
While the House is likely to pass the Senate bill, neither chamber can garner the two-thirds supermajority needed to override an inevitable presidential veto.
“This will not become law,” Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican, reminded senators before the vote.
The resolution “directs the President to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any part of its government or military, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran.”
Congress last authorized the president to use military action overseas in 2001 and 2002, when it greenlighted the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since then, presidents in both parties have used both resolutions to conduct different anti-terror operations in the Middle East region. But lawmakers say a new authorization is needed.
“We’ve been lied to by the Pentagon for years regarding a war that has gone on for two decades,” said Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who backed the resolution. “We don’t want additional ambiguities. We don’t want any more war.”
Democrats are particularly eager to limit Trump.
The debate comes more than a month after the U.S. military used a drone strike to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers.
Democrats have criticized the strike to kill Soleimani as risky and unjustified.
Iran retaliated with missile strikes against a U.S. air base in Iraq on Jan. 8, but no major hostilities developed since then, as some lawmakers had feared.
All three Senate Democrats who are running for president returned from the campaign trail to vote for the measure.
Most Republicans voted against the resolution.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, urged his party to reject it this week.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, warned the vote would embolden Iran.
“It will signal to the Iranians there is no price for aggression, and it will undermine deterrence and will leave our military and diplomats vulnerable,” Inhofe said.
In addition to Lee, Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee, Susan Collins, of Maine, Rand Paul, of Kentucky, Todd Young, of Indiana, Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana voted for the measure.
