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Most wars take a long time to achieve quagmire status, but Donald Trump’s Iran war is precocious. Just 60 days have passed since the president formally notified Congress about the military action there, on March 2. (The first air strikes had begun two days earlier.)
That makes today the deadline, under the War Powers Resolution (WPR), for the president to end the war, Congress to authorize it, or Trump to invoke a 30-day extension for withdrawal. Even though the deadline is written into law, it seems likely that none of these things will happen. Given a chance to rein in a wildly unpopular, unsuccessful, and likely illegal war, Congress might just do nothing—the latest sign of how ineffectual the body has become.
The administration and Republican leaders have decided to pretend the war is simply over, freeing themselves of any need to act. In a letter to Congress, obtained by Politico, the White House claims that the war has “terminated” because of the current cease-fire. House Speaker Mike Johnson has adopted a similar line. “We are not at war,” he told NBC News yesterday. “I don’t think we have an active, kinetic military bombing, firing, or anything like that. Right now, we are trying to broker a peace.”
This is absurd. Trump’s interpretation would allow a president to engineer cease-fires every two weeks to escape congressional involvement. The war is not over in any sense: Thousands of service members are deployed, thousands of ships are trapped in the Persian Gulf, and negotiations with Iran haven’t just stalled—they barely seem to exist. The president has resorted to threatening Iran with a meme depicting himself wielding an assault rifle in front of explosions and the caption No More Mr. Nice Guy!
The war’s existence is itself a sign of Congress’s weakness. The Constitution gives the power to declare war to the legislative branch, and Trump neither sought nor received it in this case. Wishing to give presidents leeway to act quickly in an emergency, but also wishing to maintain some control, Congress enacted the WPR in 1973. Throughout the first two months of the Iran war, Democrats forced six votes attempting to trigger the resolution—which, as my colleague Tom Nichols has written, would be a dicey choice—but Republicans defeated all six.
The 60-day mark theoretically forces action, but the law is not self-enforcing: It assumes Congress will act, and as is clear by now, this is not a safe bet. Yesterday, the House was finally able to find a way to end a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that had begun on Valentine’s Day, making it the longest in history. (The Senate passed a bill to reopen the department at the end of March, but the House left town rather than pass it.)
Ahead of the WPR deadline, some Republican senators said they were open to action. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is drafting an authorization. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has already joined with Democrats on prior votes, and yesterday Susan Collins of Maine did as well. But it’s a long way from these gestures to both chambers actually passing an authorization or forcing Trump to withdraw, especially when the House is absorbed in a series of other self-inflicted crises.
Flouting the WPR is not merely a Trump problem. During the 2011 U.S. bombing of Libya, lawmakers in both parties criticized President Obama for acting without authorization. The Obama administration laughably contended that, although the U.S. had spent upwards of $1 billion, the attack didn’t fall under the WPR because “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.” (The Trump administration has borrowed that line to justify its likely illegal strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, saying in essence that it needs no authorization because although the U.S. military is involved, no one is shooting back.)
With a runaway president and a dysfunctional Congress, some Democrats are contemplating suing the Trump administration for violating the WPR, Time reported this week. The liberal legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky also recommends the courts as a venue for checking the war. Democrats don’t have many other levers to pull, but the outlook for such a lawsuit is murky. As Chemerinsky ruefully admits, courts have deemed such suits in recent decades to be political questions outside their scope. Whether Democrats would have standing to sue is also in question; some of them tried to sue Trump for violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause during his first term, but judges rejected the case.
Even if the legal hurdles can be overcome, it’s humiliating for Congress, a theoretically co-equal branch of government, to be forced to turn to the judiciary, an entirely different branch, to do the work that it is unable or unwilling to do. No wonder the public’s view of Congress has matched its all-time worst in the Gallup poll, reaching 86 percent disapproval in a survey released last week. Opinions within the body are, if possible, even lower. “This is what happens when you have leadership who can’t organize a one-car parade,” a senior House Republican told NOTUS.
How Congress decides to handle Iran is important, given that the war has been thus far a strategic, moral, and legal failure. But the underlying questions of legislative power are much deeper than the current acute crisis. Fixing American politics and turning back the tide of authoritarianism will require an empowered and effective legislative branch that can stand as a counterweight to the White House. Right now, Congress doesn’t seem up to the job.
Related:
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Today’s News
- Spirit Airlines is preparing to shut down after a proposed $500 million government bailout fell apart—officials and bondholders were unable to agree on a rescue deal as the carrier’s cash runs low.
- U.S. officials say Iran is using the cease-fire to recover missiles and other weapons hidden underground or buried beneath rubble from U.S. and Israeli strikes as part of an effort to rebuild its military capabilities.
- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is reinstating some employees who were dismissed under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, as the agency moves to stabilize staffing ahead of hurricane season and the World Cup.
Dispatches
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Evening Read
The Secret to Success Is ‘Monotasking’
By David Epstein
If Isabel Allende’s office needs to be painted, it has to be done by January 8 or put on hold. Every year, that’s the day she starts writing.
The pattern goes back to January 8, 1981, when Allende began her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Ever since, she has cleared her calendar and started a new book on that date, assuming she had finished the previous one. The ritual has helped her publish a book about every 18 months for 43 years. Today, at age 83, Allende is the most translated female Spanish‑language author in the world, by far …
Allende’s January 8 ritual is a form of what social scientists call a “commitment device”: a self‑imposed restriction of freedom in service of a larger goal.
Read the full article.
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Culture Break
Read. A new book on attachment theory proposes a psychiatrist’s case for choosing friends more carefully, Faith Hill writes.
Explore. Kids deserve better than goody bags as party favors, Mandy Len Catron argued in January. They’re wasteful and impersonal—and tend to deprive children of the joy of thoughtful giving.
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.
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