{"id":3106,"date":"2020-01-09T20:29:35","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T20:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.jonotarsomoy.com\/?p=3106"},"modified":"2020-01-09T20:29:35","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T20:29:35","slug":"house-to-vote-on-restraining-trumps-actions-against-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/2020\/01\/09\/house-to-vote-on-restraining-trumps-actions-against-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"House to vote on restraining Trump\u2019s actions against Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
The House will vote Thursday on a measure limiting President Donald Trump\u2019s ability to take military action against Iran as Democratic criticism of the U.S. killing of a top Iranian general intensified.<\/div>\n
\n

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the planned vote in a one-page statement that said last week\u2019s drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani was \u201cprovocative and disproportionate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democratic war powers resolution seems certain to pass over solid Republican opposition. A similar proposal by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., faces an uphill fight in the GOP-run Senate.<\/p>\n

Because of a procedural dispute between the two parties, it was unclear whether Thursday\u2019s vote would be a step toward binding Trump\u2019s hands-on Iran or a symbolic gesture of opposition by Democrats.<\/p>\n

Republicans say the proposal \u2014 a special type of resolution that does not get the president\u2019s signature \u2014 does not have the force of law. Democrats say that under the 1973 War Powers Act, it would be binding if also approved by the Senate. The matter has not been definitively decided by federal courts.<\/p>\n

The House vote was scheduled shortly after a briefing on Iran Wednesday by top administration officials that many Democrats criticized as lacking specific justification for the killing. Iran retaliated early Wednesday local time by launching missiles at two military bases in Iraq that house American troops. No casualties were reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of Congress have serious, urgent concerns about the Administration\u2019s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward,\u201d Pelosi said in her statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress hereby directs the President to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces to engage in hostilities in or against Iran or any part of its government or military\u201d unless Congress declares war on that country or enacts legislation authorizing use of force to prevent an attack on the U.S. and its forces, the five-page resolution says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s extremely important that we as a country if we are going to \u2014 either intentionally or accidentally \u2014 slide into war, that we have a debate about it,\u201d said freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., the measure\u2019s sponsor. Slotkin is a former CIA analyst and Pentagon official who served in Iraq.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to understand \u2026 what\u2019s your strategy?\u201d she said, referring to the Trump administration. \u201cHow do you know you\u2019re succeeding and not just escalating us into something more and more dangerous? We are owed concrete, specific details on strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The showdown between the White House and Capitol Hill was the latest example of Trump\u2019s willingness to break the norms in Washington. Trump did not consult with congressional leaders ahead of the attack that killed the Iranian general and afterward sent Congress a notification explaining the rationale but kept it classified.<\/p>\n

Congress has allowed its war powers role to erode since the passage of Authorization for Use of Military Force in 2001 to fight terrorism after the 9\/11 attacks, and passage of another AUMF for the invasion of Iraq in 2002.<\/p>\n

The fallout from those votes deeply divided Congress and the nation, with many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, now saying they were mistakes. Yet Congress has been paralyzed on the question of whether to repeal or change those authorities.<\/p>\n

Trump, facing one of the greatest tests of his presidency, said Wednesday that Iran appeared to be \u201cstanding down\u201d and said the U.S. response would be to put in place new economic sanctions \u201cuntil Iran changes its behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strikes by Iran had pushed Tehran and Washington perilously close to all-out conflict and put the world\u2019s attention on Trump as he weighed whether to respond with more military force.<\/p>\n

Republicans have largely supported Trump\u2019s actions, saying the president was well within his power to take out Iran\u2019s architect of proxy operations against Americans in the Middle East. The U.S. considered Soleimani a terrorist.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much is enough? How many more Americans did Soleimani need to kill before somebody supports taking him out?\u201d asked Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 Republican in the House. The world is a safer place without Soleimani in it, he added.<\/p>\n

Democrats were unconvinced that the threat posed by Soleimani was imminent or that other alternatives to the killing were pursued in good faith. By not disclosing many details of the threat, Trump was asking the American public to trust the very intelligence reports he has often disparaged, Democrats said.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans also criticized the briefing by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top officials. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said it was \u201cprobably the worst briefing I\u2019ve seen, at least on a military issue,\u201d in the nine years he\u2019s served in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Lee called it \u201cdistressing\u201d that officials suggested it would only embolden Iran if lawmakers debated the merits of further military action. He walked into the briefing undecided, Lee said, but left it favoring the war powers resolution being offered by Kaine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not acceptable for officials within the executive branch of government \u2026 to come in and tell us that we can\u2019t debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt\u2019s un-American, it\u2019s unconstitutional, and it\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelosi said the House may also consider additional legislation to repeal the 2002 Iraq authorization of force and a separate bill to prohibit funding for military action against Iran not authorized by Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House will vote Thursday on a measure limiting President Donald Trump\u2019s ability to take military action against Iran as Democratic criticism of the U.S. killing of a top Iranian general intensified. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the planned vote in a one-page statement that said last week\u2019s drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3108,"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions\/3108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonotarsomoy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}