The US decision to carry out an attack on Iran not only invited retaliatory strikes from Tehran, but also criticism from Democratic lawmakers who accused Republican President Donald Trump of violating the War Powers Resolution passed by Congress.
Congress passed a resolution on Tuesday that would require the president to halt military operations against Iran or obtain Congressional approval before taking further action.
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Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna from California condemned the recent U.S. attack on Iran, calling it a “clear violation” of Congressional resolutions and threatening to take President Trump to court.
The U.S. military’s Central Command on Saturday attacked Iranian military facilities after accusing Tehran of targeting ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a focus of a geopolitical showdown between the two countries.
In response, Tehran on Sunday attacked US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, the two countries exchanging attacks for the second time over the weekend, threatening to dismantle the fragile Iran-US memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on June 15.
meanwhileDespite the framework agreement signed on Friday and a memorandum of understanding calling for an end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, Israel continues to attack Lebanon.
So is Trump breaking the law, and can Congress stop him from attacking Iran?
What is the War Powers Resolution of 1973?
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing troops to hostilities and prohibits continued military action beyond 60 days pending Congressional approval.
The Senate voted Tuesday for the 10th time to curb the war that the United States and Israel launched against Tehran on February 28.
The Senate passed the resolution 50-48, even though President Trump’s Republicans held slim majorities in both chambers. Four Republicans voted in favor of the resolution. There is no binding force.
The House of Representatives also passed the bill on June 3 by a vote of 215-208.
Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, top Democrat Chuck Schumer said, “Trump has promised for years to put maximum pressure on Iran, but in the end he ended up inflicting the most havoc, the most disruption, the most cost on the American people in a terrible war.”
He added: “The American people paid the price for President Trump’s historic fiasco in Iran, which will go down in the history books as one of the worst foreign policy forays America has ever made.”
As an Ipsos/Reuters poll suggests, the war against Iran is unpopular in the United States, with less than a quarter of people feeling the war was worth the sacrifices.
The vote on the resolution comes as the Pentagon also seeks $80 billion in grants from Congress, primarily to replace munitions and stockpiles depleted during the Iran war.
How was this resolution passed and what is its content?
Four Republicans voted in favor of the Senate resolution on a bipartisan basis: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Other Republicans, Mitch McConnell and Dave McCormick, did not vote for the resolution.
The resolution “directs the President to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“President Trump would be authorized to use further military force against Iran only if explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific Congressional authorization,” the paper said.
However, the resolution allows for a limited military presence to remain in the Middle East to prevent an “imminent attack” against the United States or its allies.
President Trump said the vote was “premature and meaningless” and “gave aid and comfort” to Iran.
At a luncheon at the Capitol on Wednesday, he slammed Republican lawmakers who voted in favor of the resolution. That night, after the Senate rejected a nearly identical war powers resolution 47-50 to appease the president, Cassidy changed his vote and Paul cast the present vote.
Does Trump care about that?
On the surface, that’s not the case.
While the resolution reflects the wariness of members of both the House and Senate about both the war and the memorandum of understanding President Trump signed with Iran to end it, it is largely symbolic because it does not have the full force of law.
Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the sole authority to declare war, but previous presidents have waged war without Congressional approval.
Trump pointed to these precedents, saying on the Axios show last week that he had not learned any “lessons” about the limits of presidential executive power during the Iran war. “There are no limits,” he said.
The White House also dismissed the Senate’s passage of the resolution, calling it “meaningless” and saying the resolution was due to “Republican absenteeism.”
“The resolution directs the President to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran. However, since hostilities ended with the April 7 ceasefire, there are no hostilities eligible for removal of U.S. forces,” White House officials said in a statement Tuesday.
But on Friday, President Trump directed the U.S. military to attack Iran, in a move the administration claims is in response to Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian government insists that ships only use routes approved by Iran to ensure safe navigation. It opposes an alternative route recommended by the United States closer to the Omani coast.
Iran claimed that the new U.S. attack violated a memorandum of understanding signed by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Is President Trump breaking the law?
Prior to this, there had been no War Powers Resolution passed by both Congresses in Washington, DC. A 1983 Supreme Court decision stated that such an action must be filed in order for the president’s signature to have legal effect.
US constitutional expert Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that President Trump would “ignore the vote on the false illusion of unconstitutionality”.
“The court will refrain from intervening based on the principle of political issues,” Fein said. “But Congress can end the war by cutting off the funding that President Trump requested. What he is doing is clearly an impeachable crime, and this will be a problem for President Trump when Congress is handed over to Democrats in November.”
Unlike previous administrations, President Trump has not passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which allows the use of military force without a declaration of war. For example, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Congress passed the AUMF, giving then-President George W. Bush broad powers to wage the so-called “war on terror.”
But the constitutionality of the 1973 War Powers Resolution will likely end up in the courts, as Democrat Khanna has threatened.
“Trump must stop this war now or we will take him to court and force him to do so,” Khanna wrote to X late Saturday after the US struck Iranian targets for the second day in a row.
Is the region returning to full-scale combat?
Hassan Ahmadian, an associate professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera that the attack could trigger a domino effect of attacks between the United States and Iran.
“I think we are preparing for escalation because Iran will obviously retaliate,” he said.
Ahmadian argued that Article 5 of the memorandum states that for 60 days, “Iran will make arrangements for the safe passage of commercial ships,” and after that, “Iran and Oman will make arrangements.”
“And now the United States wants to put in place an arrangement that is different from the memorandum of understanding that it signed,” he said. “What we’re seeing is the United States trying to find a way out of this memorandum while obliging Iran to terminate the terms.”
He said the United States had done the same in Lebanon by brokering a new framework agreement, adding that Iran was “not going to let this go.”
