(Adnkronos) – For the first time since the start of the conflict with Iran over three months ago, a resolution aimed at preventing Donald Trump from ordering new raids without congressional authorization has been approved in Congress. After several failed attempts in recent weeks, the decisive factor for the resolution’s passage in the House was that four Republican representatives joined the Democrats, disobeying the party leadership which called for the defense of a conflict that, according to the latest polls, is considered a wrong decision by over 60% of voters preparing to vote in November.
“We are trapped in something that will not end because an incompetent president started it thinking only of his ego without preparing for the consequences,” declared Gregory Meeks, the Democratic representative who introduced the resolution, appealing to the War Powers Resolution, a law approved in 1973 to limit the president’s ability to initiate or expand a conflict without congressional authorization.
The law represented a legislative response to the Vietnam War, which, without an official declaration from Congress, had transformed over the years into a long and bloody conflict, the ‘quagmire’ in which over 58,000 Americans lost their lives. The War Powers Resolution indeed stipulates that the president must inform Congress within 48 hours of the involvement of American armed forces in military operations, which may have a limited duration of 60 days. After this date, in the absence of congressional authorization, the law requires the president to end the use of military force.
The 60-day deadline was exceeded over a month ago, on May 1st, with Trump disputing its validity by claiming that hostilities had in fact “ended” with the ceasefire coming into effect on April 8th, even though the US continued to impose the naval blockade. This argument was reiterated by Republican leaders in the chamber yesterday, even though cross-raids have resumed in recent days, despite the continuation of negotiations initiated with the truce: “we are not in a situation of hostility – said Brian Mast, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee – we are engaged with almost exactly the same number of forces that we continuously maintain in the region.”
The approval of the resolution yesterday has strong symbolic value, as it must now pass to the Senate where a similar measure received initial procedural approval last week, but at the time of the vote, three Republican senators who support the conflict were absent. Even in the unlikely event of its approval, Trump will surely impose a veto, sending the bill back to Congress, which can only override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority.
It is interesting to note that at the time of the approval of the War Powers Resolution, then-President Richard Nixon vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode his veto, and the resolution became law precisely after the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam in 1973.
In recent weeks, Trump stated that the law “is unconstitutional, a total violation of Article III of the Constitution, as all presidents and their Justice departments have determined before me.”
Yesterday’s vote, however, has its political significance, also because it was followed by another in which six Republicans sided with the Democrats, and against the foreign policy directives of the Trump administration and the GOP leadership, approving eight billion in loans to Ukraine and 300 million in security aid. In this case too, the measure, which provides for additional sanctions on Russian financial and energy sectors, will have to pass the Senate, but it indicates another break with the Trump administration.
