Middle East conflicts revive clash between the president and Congress over war powers
WASHINGTON — This week marked a key deadline under the half-century-old War Powers Resolution for President Joe Biden to obtain congressional approval to continue his military campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, consistent with his sole authority under the U.S. Constitution to to declare war and otherwise. allow military violence.
It came and went in public silence — even from Senate Democrats frustrated that the Biden administration was blowing past some checkpoints that would give Congress more control over the United States’ increasing military involvement in the conflicts in the Middle East.
The Biden administration maintains that nothing in the War Powers Resolution, or other deadlines, guidelines and laws, requires it to suspend its military support for Israel’s five-month war in Gaza, or the two-month U.S. military attacks on the Houthis change. to submit to greater congressional oversight or control.
That left some frustrated Democrats in the Senate weighing how far to go in confronting a president of their own party over his military authority.
Democrats are wary of undermining Biden as he faces a difficult re-election campaign. Their ability to act is limited by their control of only one chamber, the Senate, where some Democrats — and many Republicans — support Biden’s military actions in the Middle East.
While Biden’s approach gives him more leeway in how he handles U.S. military action since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, there is a risk that the crisis will deepen if something goes seriously wrong.
James A. Siebens, leader of the Defense Strategy and Planning project at the Stimson Center in Washington, called it a “latent constitutional crisis.”
The conflicts in the Middle East have revived a longstanding clash between the president, as commander in chief, and Congress, which has the power to stop and start wars and controls their financing.
American and British warships, aircraft and drones opened attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen on January 11. Hundreds of American attacks followed. The US strikes are aimed at pushing back a wave of attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis, a clan-based movement that has taken control of much of northern Yemen, on international shipping in the Red Sea since the war between Israel and Hamas. began.
Biden formally notified Congress the next day. The administration went to great lengths to frame the U.S. military campaign as defensive actions rather than “hostilities” covered by the War Powers Resolution.
The resolution gives presidents 60 days after they notify Congress that they have sent U.S. troops into an armed conflict, either to receive permission to continue fighting or to withdraw U.S. forces. That deadline was Tuesday.
The White House continues to maintain that the military actions are intended to defend U.S. forces and are not covered by the resolution’s 60-day provision.
Congress pushed through the War Powers Resolution over the presidential veto in 1973, and moved forcefully to regain its authority over America’s wars abroad when President Richard Nixon expanded the war in Vietnam.
Since then, presidents have often argued that U.S. involvement in conflict does not amount to “hostilities” or otherwise fall under the resolution. If lawmakers disapprove, they can, among other things, pressure the executive branch to request authorization for military force, generally try to get Congress to formally order the president to withdraw, withhold funding or suspend oversight of strengthen Congress.
For Yemen, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is considering introducing legislation within weeks that would authorize the US campaign against the Houthis within established limits on time, geographic scope and scope. The plan has not previously been announced.
Murphy and other Democrats in Congress have raised concerns about the effectiveness of U.S. attacks on the Houthis, the risk of further regional escalation and the lack of clarity about the administration’s endgame. They have asked why the administration sees it as the U.S. military’s mission to protect a global shipping lane.
“These are ‘hostilities.’ There is no congressional authorization for them,” Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on seeking congressional authorization for the U.S. attacks on the Houthis. “And it’s not even close.”
Asked this week what happens now that the 60 days are up, Kaine said it would be premature for Congress to consider approving U.S. action against the Houthis without understanding the strategy.
Idaho Senator James Risch. the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had no such doubts.
“I believe the president has all the power he needs under the Constitution to do what he is doing in Yemen,” Risch said this week.
But it is Gaza, and the rising death toll among Palestinian civilians, that has sparked most of the congressional protests. The war between Israel and Hamas also has a much more prominent profile in American domestic politics. While many Americans are firmly opposed to any cuts in military aid to Israel, a growing number of Democrats have begun withholding votes from Biden in the presidential election to demand more U.S. action for the trapped people in Gaza.
Some in Congress were frustrated early in the war that the administration sidestepped congressional review to provide additional military aid to Israel as quickly as possible by declaring a national security emergency.
A presidential order negotiated with Senate Democrats requires Israel to declare in writing by March 25 that it will adhere to international law in using US weapons in Gaza and that it will not impede humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians – or will face a possible cut in US military aid.
The United Nations has said Israeli restrictions are preventing many aid trucks from entering Gaza. The US began airdrops this month and is working on a sea route to bring more food and other essential goods into the area.
Some in Congress are urging the administration to cut military aid now, under existing federal law that requires countries that receive U.S. military assistance to use it in accordance with international law, including through humanitarian access to allow civilians in conflict.
A group of Senate Democrats and independent Senator Bernie Sanders wrote to Biden this week saying it was already clear that Israel was obstructing humanitarian aid to Israel. They urged him to immediately cut military aid in the absence of a reversal by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu’s government under existing US foreign aid laws.
“I’m still stunned” that the administration hasn’t acted, said Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, one of the senators who pushed the hardest on the issue.
——
Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed.