The Democrat-led House of Representatives on Thursday voted to markedly curtail the ability of President Donald Trump, a Republican, to launch a military strike against Iran.
They then voted 236-to-166 for a bill to repeal a 2002 authorization for then-President George W. Bush’s war against Iraq, which is known by the acronym AUMF and has been used since as a legal basis for other US military operations.
BILL WILL USE THE POWER OF THE PURSE TO PREVENT WAR WITH IRAN
The bills have yet to clear the Republican-led Senate and can be quashed by Trump’s veto.
Democratic lawmakers accused Trump of reckless warmongering with the Islamic Republic and criticized as provocative his decision to launch the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 2.
Writing on Twitter, Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna said the bill will “use the power of the purse to prevent war with Iran”. “The executive branch has used the AUMF to get us involved in military conflicts without a vote in Congress for far too long,” wrote Khanna. “Our new foreign policy consensus will reject interventionism.”
Republican lawmakers, however, said the measure would only serve to tie the hands of their commander-in-chief and limit his ability to conduct operations that could be vital to national security.
