Anti-war groups ask Congress to limit Biden’s war powers after Syria attacks

A left-right coalition of anti-war and pro-military containment groups has a message for members of Congress: get President Joe Biden to seek authorization before launching lethal attacks like those in February.

Last month, the Biden government bombed two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iranian-backed militias in retaliation for the recent militia attacks against American troops in Iraq.

Lawmakers from both parties – but particularly Democrats – denounced the attacks almost immediately, saying the United States is not at war with Syria and that Congress has not approved any attack on Iranian-backed militants.

“Offensive military action without congressional approval is not constitutional, without extraordinary circumstances,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a longtime advocate of strengthening Congress’ role in authorizing military operations.

The Biden government, of course, did not agree. He argued that Iranian-backed representatives threatened US troops and, therefore, that Biden has the right under Article II of the Constitution to use force to defend those troops.

But that justification didn’t go well for those who have long wanted Congress to assert its role in decision-making in America’s wars. And now they are asking Congress to do something about it.

In a letter to Congress shared exclusively with Vox, two dozen organizations across the political spectrum – from progressive foreign policy groups to conservative think tanks – are asking lawmakers to pass a new Resolution of the Powers of War “to make it clear that strikes by the executive branch in Syria on February 25, 2021, were not authorized, nor would they be similar actions. “

“If Congress fails to act to rebuke and ban this illegal action, this precedent could be set to defend unauthorized military action essentially anywhere in the world, against almost any group, and at virtually any time, provided that a government declares that the US interests are threatened by the target group at some point in the past or in the future, ”says the letter.

The letter, which is due to be sent to lawmakers later this week, is likely to add more urgency to the growing pressure from Congress to reduce the president’s war powers – a pressure the White House has so far signaled it supports.

What the Powers of War Resolution Letter says

On Tuesday, the letter had 24 signatories: Action Corps, Antiwar.com, Center for International Policy, CODEPINK, Concerned Veterans for America, Defense Priorities Initiative, Defending Rights and Dissent, Demand Progress, Environmentalists Against War, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Historians for Peace and Democracy, Just Foreign Policy, the Libertarian Institute, MADRE, National Iranian American Council Action, Peace Action, Peace Direct, Peaceworkers, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Roots Action, STEM Strikes for Peace , Veterans for Peace, Women for Arms Trade Transparency and the Yemen Alliance Committee.

Together, this left-right grouping – organized by Demand Progress, Just Foreign Policy and Concerned Veterans of America – argues that the Biden government’s legal case for strikes is flawed.

According to Article II of the Constitution and the 1973 Powers of War Act, the signatories write, the president’s legal authorities to take military action without first receiving formal approval from Congress “apply only to a narrow set of situations in which that the imminent and extreme nature of the threat makes it impracticable or impossible to convene Congress in a timely manner that would allow for the necessary defensive actions. “

Erik McGregor / LightRocket via Getty Images

The signatories say there was nothing “imminent” or “extreme” in the threat to American militia troops supported by Iran when the Biden government launched the attack on Syria on February 25. Although the Pentagon said that American troops in Iraq had already been the target of three other rocket attacks that month, the last one – the attack in Erbil that killed a Filipino contractor and injured several American troops – occurred 10 days before the United States took action. .

This, the letter argues, “demonstrates[s] that there was enough time to allow Congress to exercise its duty to authorize military action ”.

The letter also notes that, after the US attack, there was another attack on American troops in March – this one at Al-Asad airbase in western Iraq – that many suspect was perpetrated by the same Iran-backed representatives.

But instead of seeing this as proof that, as the Biden government stated in justifying the attack, US troops were in fact at imminent risk of an ongoing attack by these militias, the signatories of the letter argue that the attack by USA provoked the attack.

They cite a recent Just Security article by Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School and a former Pentagon lawyer, arguing that “Self-defense is not really self-defense if, instead of preventing a threat, it precipitates it.”

It is still officially unknown, however, who launched the March attack on Al-Asad airbase and whether it was conducted in response to United States retaliation or as part of the weeks-long campaign against American troops.

Still, for this and other reasons, the signatories insist that the strike was “manifestly unauthorized, illegal and unconstitutional” and demand that lawmakers “immediately introduce War Powers Resolutions to prohibit any future unauthorized attacks of this type.”

“His blatant claim to Article II authority to attack any group, in any country, could set a precedent that would completely nullify the purpose of [AUMF reform], ”Said Hadiya Afzal, an organizer of Just Foreign Policy who orchestrated the letter’s effort. “Congress must consistently defend its powers of war and reject unauthorized military actions – regardless of who is in the White House.”

The question now is whether lawmakers will hear what the cross-ideological group has to say. The most likely result is that the letter will fuel a growing discussion about the powers of war in the coming months.

A debate on powers of war has already started in Congress

Several previous presidential administrations have relied on two authorizations for the use of military force – known as AUMFs – to conduct military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. The 2001 version gave the go-ahead for the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after 9/11, and the 2002 iteration gave the blessing of the Bush Congress to invade Iraq – a move then Sen. Biden voted in favor of.

Since then, the Republican and Democratic governments have widely interpreted these authorizations as giving the United States permission to, among other things, hunt down terrorists around the world, including the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Iraq. However, the presidents still said that they have the final authority to manage the military as needed in their role as commander in chief.

Biden, on the other hand, has so far signaled that he would support an effort by Congress to revoke those authorizations and replace them with an updated – and probably more limited – version.

“We are committed to working with Congress to ensure that the authorizations for the use of military force currently in place are replaced by a narrow and specific structure that will ensure that we can protect Americans from terrorist threats and at the same time end the eternal wars.” , White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a March 5 statement to Politico, later posted on Twitter.

This announcement was made just two days after Kaine and Senator Todd Young (R-IN) presented a bill that would repeal the 2002 AUMF and a 1991 measure that paved the way for war with Iraq. “Congress has a responsibility to not only vote to authorize new military actions, but also to revoke old authorizations that are no longer needed,” said Kaine in a statement.

But some critics said that more targeted new authorizations would still allow Biden or any future president to bomb whenever and wherever he wanted. This is partly why Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), for example, reintroduced its Resolution on the Powers of War shortly after the White House said Biden was open to an AUMF discussion.

“This is a big step, but Congress must also prevent any president from avoiding the constitutional obligation to seek authorization from Congress before introducing US forces into hostilities – which my legislation would do,” he said in a statement.

Some of the groups that signed the letter, such as Demand Progress and Just Foreign Policy, supported DeFazio’s action. As of now, there is no indication that its resolution will reach Congress, or even be discussed, but it does show that there is already a serious impetus for the powers of war.