Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate remain unwilling to tackle a legislative rewrite of a measure authorizing President Obama’s use of military force in the Middle East, even though the U.S. has escalated military involvement in Syria without any say-so from Congress.
“I don’t believe in AUMFs,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday when a reporter asked whether he regretted the Senate failing to debate an Authorization for Use of Military Force a year ago.
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President Obama sent an AUMF measure to Congress in February 2015, but neither the House nor the Senate voted on it because it lacked enough support. The two chambers also passed on taking up their own AUMF bill, in part because lawmakers disagreed on the size and scope of U.S. involvement and couldn’t coalesce around their own plan.
Obama was left to operate under AUMFs passed by Congress in 2001 and 2002, which some critics say is outdated.
Some claimed that Obama’s decision to send a few dozen troops to Syria broke his promise to avoid “boots on the ground” in that country, while the White House said it was maintaining its current policy, but adding some special operation forces. But even after that dust-up, there’s little interest in Congress with an effort to clarify or define the mission.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., blamed the president for the lack of a war plan that could win the endorsement of Congress.
“It’s clear the president does not have a strategy in place, so it would be hard to figure out how to authorize a non-strategy,” McConnell said when asked about the role Congress should play now that the president has sent troops to Syria.
McConnell added that Obama, “must feel like he has the authority” to send military forces to the area.
“But I personally would not find it very appealing to try to come up with an AUMF in this particular way,” McConnell said. “And that is one of the reasons that most members have been reluctant to suggest it’s a good idea.”
