President Biden remained notably silent on Friday after authorizing airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Syria on Thursday night as some of his Democratic allies call for an explanation of a move that raises the stakes for his nuclear negotiation efforts with Iran.
During former President Barack Obama’s term, congressional Democrats were often frustrated by his targeted drone and other military strikes on extremist organization operatives and targets. They attempted to negotiate a new force-authorization measure to cover targeted strikes but could not even agree on the definitions of key terms with Republicans, the Obama White House, and even themselves.
“The American people deserve to hear the administration’s rationale for these strikes,” Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said in a statement. “Offensive military action without congressional approval is not constitutional absent extraordinary circumstances. Congress must be fully briefed on this matter expeditiously.”
National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement Friday that the DOD briefed congressional leadership before the action Thursday, and that the administration has been briefing the Hill throughout the day.
“The president acted pursuant to inherent self-defense powers enshrined in our Constitution and the UN Charter. We had a rigorous process to include legal review of the strikes conducted,” she said. “The targets were chosen to correspond to the recent attacks.”
The Pentagon late Thursday characterized the retaliatory strikes against infrastructure used by militant groups Kait’ib Hezbollah and Kait’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada as “defensive” in nature.
“At President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
But another Senate Foreign Relations Democrat, Connecticut’s Chris Murphy, called the non-congressionally approved strikes “unacceptable.”
“The president unquestionably has the right to defend our nation and our armed forces from imminent attack. But retaliatory strikes, not necessary to prevent an imminent threat, must fall within the definition of an existing congressional authorization of military force,” he said in a statement.
“I have inherent trust in the national security decision making of President Biden, and I know how seriously he takes Congress’s war making powers,” Murphy added. “But Congress should hold this administration to the same standard it did prior administrations, and require clear legal justifications for military action, especially inside theaters like Syria, where Congress has not explicitly authorized any American military action.”
‘No justification’
The Democratic criticism is not limited to the upper chamber.
“There is absolutely no justification for a president to authorize a military strike that is not in self-defense against an imminent threat without congressional authorization,” House Armed Services Committee member Ro Khanna of California said Friday. “We need to extricate from the Middle East, not escalate. The president should not be taking these actions without seeking explicit authorization instead of relying on broad, outdated. I spoke against endless war with Trump, and I will speak out against it when we have a Democratic president.”
Kirby said the strikes were in response to recent attacks against an Iraqi base used by Americans on Feb. 15 and a rocket attack in the Green Zone near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Monday.
“The strikes destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups,” the statement added.
The move against the Iranian-backed groups comes as the Biden administration hopes to restart nuclear negotiations with Iran. Earlier this week, Kirby refused to attribute blame to Iran for the attacks, opting to wait for an Iraqi-led investigation.
Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jim Inhofe released a Friday statement calling on the Biden administration to rethink its diplomatic goals with Iran.
“The fact that Iran chose to escalate shortly after the administration declared its desire to resume negotiations with Tehran has not gone unnoticed,” he said. “I hope the administration rethinks its current negotiating strategy with Iran and works with Congress on a bipartisan approach.”
The Oklahoma Republican called for a new agreement that incorporate Iran’s support for terrorism, its nuclear and ballistic missiles program.
“We cannot lift sanctions on a country that continues to target Americans and our allies for murder,” he said.
Neither Biden nor the White House has issued a response yet, with the president opting to bypass media questions when walking to Marine One Friday morning en route to Texas.
His press secretary, Jen Psaki, is expected to brief reporters on Air Force One, but at the time of takeoff, there were no official plans for the commander in chief to do so about his first ordered military strike.
Administrations from both parties since 9/11 have pointed to the authorization of the use of military force measure passed after the 2001 attacks and the Constitution’s provisions on presidential national defense powers as giving presidents ample powers to order such strikes.
