The Senate this week is poised to pass a resolution that would limit President Trump’s ability to use military force against Iran, where a drone strike earlier this year killed a top Iranian general and sparked retaliatory missile strikes against U.S forces in Iraq.
The measure, sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, has four Republican co-sponsors who, along with all Democrats, will provide the 51 votes needed to pass the resolution.
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.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has urged Republicans to vote against the bill.
But GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana, and Mike Lee of Utah, have pledged their support.
The Senate will begin debating the resolution on Wednesday but won’t vote on it until Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Tuesday.
Schumer said the Senate’s four Democratic presidential candidates — Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Michael Bennet of Colorado — will be present in the Senate to vote in favor of the resolution.
The measure faces little chance of enactment because Trump will veto it, and neither chamber has the two-thirds supermajority needed to override his veto.
The House passed a similar measure last month, but it is nonbinding.
The debate on war powers comes more than a month after the U.S. military used a drone strike to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers.
Democrats initially criticized the strike that killed Soleimani as risky and unjustified.
Iran retaliated days later with missile strikes against a U.S. air base in Iraq on Jan. 8, but no major hostilities have developed since then, as some lawmakers had feared.
Lawmakers, nonetheless, want to send a message to the president that only Congress can authorize a war, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told the Washington Examiner.
“It’s just important to make it clear that the president doesn’t have the power to bring the country to war without congressional authorization,” Murphy said. “There seems to be confusing rationals as to why they took the strike against Soleimani, and I think it’s really important for us to set a line in the sand about who has the power to declare war.”
McConnell, in a floor speech this week, warned senators the resolution would send the wrong message to America’s adversaries following Trump’s successful elimination of a top terrorist in the region.
“Just as we have successfully sent Iran this strong signal of our strength and resolve, a blunt and clumsy war powers resolution would tie our own hands,” McConnell said. “With China and Russia watching, is it really a good idea to suggest that we’re willing to let a middling power like Iran push us around? This self-flagellation and self-limitation would be tantamount to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”
