After both Teheran and President Trump backed down from outright war – it transpires that Iran deliberately avoid killing US personnel and Trump recognized that by avoiding punitive retaliation for Iran’s ineffectual missile attacks – the White House and US lawmakers are duking it out in Washington over who has the authority to declare war.
The US War Powers Act, enacted during the Nixon Presidency, provides that the President can send the US Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, "statutory authorization," or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."
The Act further requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period, without congressional authorisation for use of military force (AUMF) or a declaration of war by the United States.
But successive US Presidents, including Bill Clinton and George Bush, have seized on ambiguous caveats in the act (e.g an attack on US base abroad could constitute attack on US possessions) to usurp war powers the US Constitution purportedly intended to vest in Congress.
Trump too has played fast and loose with the Act, dispatching troops at will and cavalierly suggesting a tweet is sufficient notice of communication to Congress. Distrustful of President Trump’s motive and judgment, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives is now aiming to reassert its powers.
In fact, many lawmakers are aghast at the Trump-authorised assassination o f a serving general of a sovereign foreign country even as the President’s supporters are making a belated case that Gen.Suleimani was a “terrorist” and a “war criminal.”
Amid assertions that the President lacked the authority to order such a strike, Trump acolytes are arguing that the President has the right as a result of the ‘Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists‘ Law that was initiated on September 18, 2001, shortly after the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon.
Apparently, it was with this rationalization in mind that vice-president Mike Pence tweeted, post-assassination, that Suleimani "assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."
But Democrat lawmakers are not convinced. "President Trump recklessly assassinated Qasem Soleimani. He had no evidence of an imminent threat or attack,” said Pramila Jayapal, the Indian-American Congresswoman from Washington state.
Although dangers of an immediate shoot-out with Iran has passed, the House is slated to take up on Thursday a resolution by Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and senior Defense Department official, calling on the President "to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces to engage in hostilities in or against Iran" unless Congress declares war or enacts "specific statutory authorization" for the use of armed forces.