AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): US president Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to veto a resolution, which limits presidential authority to use military action against Iran without congressional approval.
Despite Trump's vocal opposition to the measure introduced by Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, lawmakers from both sides of the House of Representatives backed the effort in a vote Wednesday. The motion was passed by the Senate last month.
Some anti-war groups, including US Democratic lawmakers, are now seeking to take Trump to court over unauthorized military action against Iran.
“I definitely think that we need to look into that,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who revived congressional interest in war powers resolutions when he first began pushing legislation to force Trump to end US support for the Saudi war on Yemen in 2017. “It’s got to be a conversation by many people in the caucus, but I’d certainly be supportive of it.”
The bill was introduced last month following Trump's order to assassinate top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport in January.
The White House claimed that the strike was legal as a self-defense measure under the 2002 military authorization to invade Iraq.
After the Senate passed the Iran resolution last month, Kaine told Al-Monitor that a potential lawsuit could be “down the road.”
“Courts have traditionally been reluctant to referee between Congress and the executive [branch] over the war powers question,” said Kaine. “We just need to keep building on what we have gained here, which is more and more of a bipartisan consensus.”
Khanna and anti-war groups say they believe that the Iran vote — alongside a series of Iran and Yemen votes last year — gives Congress significant ammunition to pursue a war powers case against Trump in the judicial system.
If Trump follows through on his threat to overrule the Kaine resolution, it would mark the seventh veto of his presidency, Al-Monitor says.
There are indicators that there’s significant bipartisan interest in taking back Congress’ authority over national security, Al-Monitor added.
“Congress unequivocally has this power, and it needs to flex its muscles and exercise it,” said Erica Fein, the advocacy director for Win Without War, a coalition of activist groups that lobbied for the Iran and Yemen war powers resolutions. “I think it’s worth exploring all avenues to reclaim its unequivocal constitutional right to be the part of our government and where we go to war.”
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source : Press TV
Thursday
12 March 2020
12:58:36 PM
1016943
US president Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to veto a resolution, which limits presidential authority to use military action against Iran without congressional approval.