WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sixty days into the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, it’s a crossroads for U.S. lawmakers. Will they assert their authority by supporting or opposing the conflict, or will they remain silent?
Experts say this is a question that lawmakers are not legally required to answer.
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The U.S. Constitution limits the president’s war-making powers. A subsequent law passed in 1973 (known as the War Powers Act) further codified that the president must cease military action after 60 days or receive approval from Congress to legally continue.
But for decades, U.S. presidents have pushed the boundaries of war-making powers, sometimes ignoring the 60-day deadline, said David Janofsky, acting director of the Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). When that happens, Congress has routinely shrugged its shoulders.
The consequences of the pending deadline remain unclear, given the federal courts’ past reluctance to consider issues of armed conflict.
The threshold will be reached on May 1, 60 days after US President Donald Trump formally “notified” Congress of the US-Israeli attack on Iran, which began on February 28.
“I think ultimately the question is: Does Congress want a say in what’s going on?” Yanovsky told Al Jazeera. “Should I say it should stop now, or do you think we need to take some responsibility and supervise it?”
“The question for members is, are we going to own this?”
Will Congress act?
So far, parliamentary political leaders have not announced their future plans.
Republicans, who hold slim majorities in the House and Senate, have already rejected a series of resolutions aimed at reining in President Trump’s military authority. Despite a small number of defectors siding with the opposition from the Democratic majority, they have shown general solidarity in not publicly opposing war with Iran.
But the top Republican, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Sen. James Risch, chairman of the influential Armed Services Committee, have so far shown no plans to introduce legislation authorizing the war.
A vote on such a bill would mark the first time that lawmakers would have to support a dispute on the record.
Many constitutional experts argue that whether Congress acts or not, the 60th day will be an inflection point, after which the war will enter the stage of being clearly illegal under the War Powers Act.
Under the law, President Trump can request a 30-day extension to complete the troop withdrawal, which would make new offensive operations impossible.
Yanovsky explained that under the War Powers Act, President Trump is responsible for stopping the war after the deadline, no matter what Congress does. If not, his war-making authority would be subject to legal challenges in federal court.
But if courts ignore the issue and Congress fails to act, the war could continue indefinitely on murky legal grounds.
“Historically, courts have tried to stay out of these kinds of issues, which means that ultimately the political branches are likely to settle them,” Yanovsky said.
Republican split as deadline approaches
Republicans have mixed messages on how they view the 60-day deadline.
At least two Republicans, Sens. Thom Tillis and Susan Collins, have indicated they will not vote to authorize further U.S. military action after May 1.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she is working on Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) to allow the U.S. military to continue operations without a full declaration of war.
Such authorizations have been used in nearly every modern U.S. war, and Congress has not formally declared war since World War II.
Murkowski suggested that some party members may not approve the Trump administration’s request for massive funding for military operations unless the AUMF is passed.
Several other Republican senators, including John Curtis and Jerry Moran, have publicly expressed concern about what they say is a lack of information from the Trump administration, even though they have not called for a vote to authorize the war.
The debate comes as many Republicans acknowledge, at least privately, that the military operation is causing potentially irreparable political damage in the run-up to November’s midterm elections, said Andrew Day, senior editor at the American Conservative.
The war and its economic fallout are alienating parts of the coalition Mr. Trump relied on to win the 2024 presidential election. Opinion polls show that support among independents is dismal, and support among Republicans remains sluggish, although they still have a majority.
This galvanized many influential opponents within President Trump’s “Make America Great Again (MAGA)” movement and was widely condemned by conservatives.
“Certainly (Republicans) are concerned behind the scenes about war with Iran,” Day said. “They realize this is a political disaster.”
not necessarily translated
Still, recognition of the political cost does not necessarily result in formal action in Congress.
Day assessed that many are weighing the political implications of publicly opposing President Trump against the impact of inaction on the war, and are likely to seek to influence the administration by staying out of the spotlight.
“I’ve talked to members of Congress who say their bosses privately criticize war with Iran, but they don’t want to fight it. They don’t want to alienate their donors, and they don’t want to incur the wrath of Donald Trump, who is a force of nature when he gets angry,” Day said.
At the same time, he said the suspension of fighting that began on April 8 provides some political cover for Republicans. This situation continues even as the US military continues to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, President Trump has repeatedly threatened new attacks. Trump again threatened to “blow up the whole country” last week, hours before announcing he was extending the ceasefire indefinitely. Negotiations for a new ceasefire have since stalled.
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., agreed that the majority of Republicans would struggle to avoid a decisive vote on war in the current political climate.
This is especially true in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrats are considered most at risk of taking control in November.
“They will want to avoid this vote by any means possible,” he told Al Jazeera.
“(The 60-day milestone) is a moment where they ignore what’s going on and try to pass it in the least visible way possible,” he told Al Jazeera.
escalation?
Presidents have long tinkered with the definition of “hostile acts” under the War Powers Act to avoid Congressional approval.
US President Bill Clinton oversaw a number of limited military operations without Congressional authorization, including in Iraq and Somalia.
In March 1999, in the midst of Serbia’s ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians, the U.S. military’s unauthorized deployment to the former Yugoslavia lasted 79 days and was unsuccessfully challenged by lawmakers.
More recently, the administration of President Barack Obama argued that the scope of the 2011 military operation in Libya, which exceeded the 60-day deadline, was not subject to the War Powers Act.
State Department lawyers argued at the time that “U.S. operations do not involve sustained combat or exchanges of active artillery fire with hostile forces, and do not involve U.S. ground forces.”
Still, POGO’s Yanofsky said another repeat of Congress’s inaction would overturn even the most liberal interpretations of what the law does and doesn’t cover.
U.S. and Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,300 people in Iran so far. Iranian retaliatory strikes across the region left dozens more dead, including 13 U.S. military personnel.
The Trump administration has pledged to strike at least 13,000 targets and destroy Iran’s military capabilities before the cessation of hostilities begins, while dismantling the country’s nuclear program and facilitating broader regime change.
And while the administration has downplayed the issue amid the pause in fighting, it has not ruled out some form of ground operations in the future.
“One of the reasons we got to this situation is that for decades, when presidents have pushed the boundaries of military intervention, Congress and the country have kind of shrugged their shoulders,” Yanovsky said.
“It’s hard to dismiss this as some kind of limited military action,” he said. “This is war.”
