WASHINGTON — The US House of Representatives passed a resolution on Wednesday directing President Donald Trump to withdraw American forces from the conflict with Iran or win approval from Congress to continue the war, after four Republicans sided with Democrats in a striking sign of growing opposition to a military campaign now in its fourth month.
The House vote is a significant rebuke to the US president and his handling of the war.
Democrats have repeatedly forced votes to limit Trump’s war powers in both the House and the Senate but the campaign has gradually picked up more Republican support in recent weeks.
The vote was 215 to 208 with Republican Reps. Thomas Massie, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett and Warren Davidson crossing party lines to support the resolution.
Trump and his senior aides have dismissed any effort by Congress to limit his war powers as unconstitutional.
But the vote in the House, and a similar one in the Senate last month when a handful of Republican defectors broke from the president and opposed the war, indicate an increasing willingness by some members of the president’s party to pressure him to end a conflict that a majority of Americans say is not worth the costs.
Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee who led the measure, praised its Republican supporters for standing up to a president who has in recent weeks sought political retribution against members of his party who have bucked him, including Massie.
Moments after the vote, he said the Republican defectors “had the wherewithal to search within themselves to do the right thing.”
Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, who had previously opposed similar measures, switched his position to support the resolution.
Though the few defections were notable, almost every Republican voted against the resolution. Most of them have accepted the Trump administration’s claim that the initial operation had concluded and that the most recent strikes in Iran were necessary acts of self-defense, arguing that gave him full power as the commander in chief to order American troops to respond.
Republican lawmakers in the House had been able to maintain enough unity to ward off previous attempts to limit Trump’s authority.
Moments before the vote, Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that passing the resolution would be a “very dangerous prospect” and that it would “weaken” the president’s ability as commander in chief to continue seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Many have dismissed Democrats’ war powers measures, which call for the removal of most US forces from hostilities in Iran, as politically motivated attacks on the president that would leave American interests unprotected.
Democrats contended that members of both parties must protect the role of Congress to determine when and how the country undertakes prolonged combat operations overseas.
The House’s vote was only the first step in a complicated and likely uphill path for the resolution. It now heads to the Senate, which under the war powers law must take it up within roughly two and a half weeks. It does not need a presidential signature, but even if Congress were to clear the measure, its legal force would remain uncertain.
While Congress has historically deployed concurrent resolutions to express its position on an issue without requiring presidential approval, the Supreme Court held in 1983 that in order for congressional actions to have binding legal effect, they must go through the standard legislative process, including being presented to the president to be signed into law.
That means any attempt to make the directive to withdraw US forces in Iran legally enforceable would almost certainly require Trump’s signature, or have two-thirds of both chambers vote to override a veto.
Source: Saudi Gazette