The next president may want to update the Islamic State war authorization, but Congress is likely to continue stonewalling on the issue as it has for nearly two years, analysts said.
Hillary Clinton said she believes President Obama has the power to fight the Islamic State under two war authorizations already on the books, but that she would “like to see it updated” to better fit the range of challenges facing the world today, including the Islamic State and the refugee crisis. Her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., has also been one of the most vocal allies in Congress urging lawmakers to exercise their responsibility to declare war.
“Maybe now we can get it moving again so we can upgrade it so that it does include all the tools and everything in our arsenal that we can use to try to work with our allies and our friends,” Clinton said during a Democratic primary debate last year. “I want to be sure what’s called the AUMF [authorization for the use of military force] has the authority that is needed going forward.”
Donald Trump also said in May that he would have no problem asking lawmakers to declare war on the Islamic State, saying that “we probably should have done that in the first place.”
But any effort to pass a new authorization for the use of military force has stalled in Congress for nearly two years, and that’s not likely to change in 2017, analysts said.
“The underlying contradiction and lack of trust between Congress and the White House is pretty likely to stay the same even if the names are different,” said Tom Donnelly, an analyst with the American Enterprise Institute.
In just one example, Rep. Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said last year that he would not support a vote on a new war authorization without a clearer strategy from the administration that could lead to success against the Islamic State, rather than “incremental, too late, trying to catch up kind of activity.”
A spokesman for Thornberry said the chairman’s perspective on the issue has not changed.
Current fighting is authorized under two previous AUMFs from 2001, which authorized fighting against terrorists and was passed in the days following 9/11, and 2002, which covered fighting in Iraq.
Critics of the president, as well as some experts, have said the legal footing for this is shaky at best, since the Islamic State didn’t exist when lawmakers voted on the two authorizations that cover fighting and called for a new authorization. In January, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called it “dishonest” for lawmakers to campaign on the threat of the Islamic State without voting on a new war authorization.
Obama first sent a war authorization to Capitol Hill in February 2015, just after his second-to-last State of the Union address. His plan authorized action against the Islamic State for three years and prohibited “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” It did not provide any geographical restrictions on where military action could occur, and repealed the 2002 authorization.
The plan met immediate resistance on Capitol Hill. Republicans said it was too restrictive, and that the president should have the ability to take whatever measures necessary to defend the country, including ground troops if needed. Democrats felt it was essentially a blank check and needed more restrictions on the president’s power, saying that the ground troops wording meant small numbers of Americans could be sent back into combat.
Even if there is a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic president in the White House, Justin Johnson, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation, said the fundamental tension between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill will still make passing a new authorization unlikely.
“Regardless of who’s in control, I think it’s still the same left-right challenge,” he said. “I think those two perspectives are pretty hard to reconcile without either some sort of external forcing function or real strong majorities on one side or the other.”
There’s been no shortage of proposals for an Islamic State-specific war authorization on Capitol Hill. Many share similarities, including lasting for three years, getting rid of at least one former war authorization and not putting any geographical restrictions on where the U.S. can strike.
The biggest sticking point is American ground troops. Kaine introduced a plan late last year that would have authorized U.S. ground forces only to protect U.S. citizens in imminent danger.
While he may differ from Clinton on specifics on the plan, he said late last month on CNN that the two agree that the country needs a new war authorization to continue fighting.
What a new authorization might look like is unclear, since the threats facing the country differ significantly from when Obama proposed his plan in February 2015. By the time a new president is in office, the Islamic State may have lost much of the ground it formerly held as its caliphate, while a civil war in Syria will likely continue to rage.
This “very different set of tasks” could change how a new AUMF is worded and demand a broader focus on security instead of a narrow focus on terrorism, said Tony Cordesman, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“It would have to use words like ‘regional stability’ and ‘preserve security’ and ‘protect civilians.’ Something broad enough that the missions would be suitably broad and give freedom of action for whatever mix of forces emerges,” he said.
Johnson said Clinton’s authorization request would probably be similar to Obama’s, while what the country might expect from a President Trump is still unclear.
“If Trump is president, I’m not sure where this discussion goes,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also said he would not allow debate on a new war authorization in 2016 since anything passed would tie the next president to a strategy he or she doesn’t support.
“I would not want to saddle the next president with a prescriptive [force authorization]. We’re going to have a new president a year from now,” McConnell said in December. “He or she may have a different view about the way to deal with ISIS and that part of the world. I don’t think we ought to be passing an [authorization] as the president exits the stage when he already thinks he has the authority to do what he’s willing to do now.”
A spokesman for McConnell did not respond to a request for comment.
Congress last debated a new war authorization in May, when Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., introduced an amendment to the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act to repeal the 2001 authorization and force the conversation on a bill AUMF.
