US Senate votes to block Donald Trump from resuming Iran war

The Senate voted on Tuesday to block US President Donald Trump from resuming the war with Iran, setting up a potentially contentious fight with the White House.

The Senate passed the resolution 50-48, with four Republicans joining Democrats to support the measure.

Republican Senators Susan Collins from Maine, Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Rand Paul from Kentucky voted for the resolution.

One Democrat, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted against it.

Two Republican senators — Mitch McConnell from Kentucky and Dave McCormick from Pennsylvania — missed the vote, allowing the measure to pass.

The vote marks one of the biggest fissures between Mr Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate during his second term.

It comes days after the Mr Trump administration reached an agreement with the Iranian Government to end the war, which several Republican senators strongly criticised for lifting sanctions on Iranian oil and taking steps toward setting up a $US300 billion ($435 billion) fund to rebuild Iran.

“It’s a big deal,” Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who has spearheaded Democrats’ repeated attempts to rein in the President’s use of the military, said of the vote.

Mr Kaine argued that the agreement to end the conflict does not make the resolution any less urgent because Mr Trump could decide to strike Iran again at any time.

War dubbed illegal

Mr Trump threatened Sunday to “hit Iran very hard again” if Tehran does not restrain its proxies in Lebanon.

“Both houses have now said this war is illegal without our authorisation,” Mr Kaine said.

“The President ought to take the off-ramp we’re giving him,” he added.

The measure, which passed the House earlier this month, cannot be vetoed, but Democrats and Republicans disagree on whether it has the force of law.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 — the law that Democrats used to force the vote — states that the President must remove US forces engaged in hostilities abroad without congressional authorisation if Congress passes such a resolution.

The Trump administration has said that it believes that the law is unconstitutional and that the provision allowing Congress to pass a war powers resolution without giving the President veto authority is on even shakier legal ground.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1983 in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadhathat Congress could not restrain the president’s veto power in such a way, though Democrats argue that courts have never weighed in on whether the precedent applies to war powers resolutions.

Republicans have countered that the Supreme Court’s ruling applies.

“The concurrent resolution process ... has been held unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court,” said Idaho Republican Senator James E. Risch, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the Senate floor before the vote.

“So whatever happens with this, it’s going to have no effect. The President isn’t going to pay any attention to it.”

He also warned that passage of the resolution would undermine the administration’s ongoing negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program.

“If this passes, the Iranians are going to simply stand up and walk away from negotiations,” Mr Risch said.

Option to veto bill resolution

A White House official made similar points after the resolution passed, arguing that it does not have the force and will have no impact because the war is over.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the administration’s view candidly.

But New York Representative Gregory W. Meeks, who led the measure in the House as the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said after the vote that he believed the measure was more than symbolic.

“Regardless of what President Trump says, this measure is binding under the War Powers Resolution, and I will explore all legal avenues to ensure the Executive complies with the will of Congress,” Mr Meeks said.

Still, Brian Finucane, a former legal official at the State Department who has consulted with Democrats in Congress on war powers efforts, said the resolution is unlikely to legally bind the administration.

He described the vote as a “repudiation” of the conflict that is symbolically significant since Congress has the sole authority under the Constitution to declare war.

Senate Democrats have forced repeated votes on war powers resolutions since the start of the Iran war in February.

The Senate advanced a similar resolution introduced by Mr Kaine last month, but he has not brought it up for its next procedural vote, saying he wants to make sure it has the votes to pass.

Unlike the House resolution, Trump could veto Mr Kaine’s resolution if it passes both chambers.

Overriding the President’s inevitable veto would take a two-thirds vote in both chambers — an almost impossible hurdle.

Paul was the only Republican to vote for the first resolution to block Mr Trump from ordering more strikes on Iran in March, but Republicans slowly started flipping as Democrats forced repeated votes.

Mr Collins started voting with Democrats when it became clear that Mr Trump would blow past a deadline in the war powers resolution that requires presidents to remove US forces from hostilities within 60 days if Congress has not authorised them.

Mr Cassidy flipped after losing his primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger. Mr Cassidy is among the senators who have criticised the agreement the Trump administration reached this month with Tehran.

“Right now Iran is ending up stronger than they started, and we’ve achieved none of the objectives originally laid out,” Cassidy told reporters Monday. “So you might say that’s disappointing.”