Why Congress tried to dodge a vote on war with Iran

As the Trump administration surroundsIran with warships at a level not seen since the Iraq invasion, many in Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, sought to avoid a vote on a war powers resolution — the type of bill constitutionally required for the president to legally wage war. According to strategists, the opposition to the vote is a symptom of a body of lawmakers who support the war, but who don’t want to be on the record, for fear of accountability.

As President Donald Trump moved U.S. forces into position around Iran, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced the resolution, which, if passed, would empower the president to wage war against Iran. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to start wars, though it has not voted for a war since 1942.

Despite warmaking being in the purview of Congress, and the passage of the resolution theoretically being necessary before Trump might act on Iran, a bipartisan group of representatives almost immediately came out against voting on the resolution, citing concerns over “flexibility” and saying that voting on the resolution is “signaling weakness at a dangerous moment.”

“We respect and defend Congress’s constitutional role in matters of war. Oversight and debate are absolutely vital. However, this resolution would restrict the flexibility needed to respond to real and evolving threats and risks, signaling weakness at a dangerous moment,” Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., said in a joint statement. “Congress should be briefed on any planned military action in compliance with the War Powers Act. It is also essential that the appropriate committees are fully and promptly briefed. Congress must not limit our ability to protect Americans and our allies.”

Corbin Trent, a Democratic strategist and former campaign aide for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told Salon that the movement to prevent a vote on the resolution is because “the Democratic Party that exists now in Congress is very much a party that’s aligned with the war machine, and has been for decades.”

“This has been a thing that the core, the corporate Democratic Party, which is the one that’s in charge right now, has been sort of fully in lockstep with the Republican Party there,” Trent said. “That’s one of the places where these two parties have been merged for quite some time.”

Similarly, journalist Aída Chávez reported that Democratic leadership was working to either delay or sideline the resolution, with one senior Democratic staffer saying “Leadership rarely comes out and says they oppose these votes outright, because they know the underlying issue is popular with the base.”

“Instead, you see process concerns, timing objections, and caucus-unity arguments used to slow things down or keep members off the record. We’ve seen the same approach on past war powers votes and foreign policy amendments that clash with the national security elite consensus,” the staffer said. 

Therefore, the opposition to the vote seems to be more about how members of Congress who are supportive of a war with Iran don’t want their support to be in the congressional record. 

“In my experience, the same way that America runs on Duncan, Congress runs on fear,” Trent said. “They’re afraid of making the wrong choice, so therefore they’d rather make no choices,” Trent said. 

Another strategist, Saikat Chakrabarti, who co-founded the Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress and is now running for Congress himself, told Salon that members learned from the Iraq war that it was better for their political futures to cede their constitutional power to the president than to take a vote on a war that they support. 

“They don’t want to go on the record supporting a war with Iran because they saw what happened to pretty much everyone who went on the record supporting a war with Iraq,” Chakrabarti said. “The support for a war in Iraq is what cost Hillary Clinton an election. It was what cost Jeb Bush an election.”

Chakrabarti pointed to the coalition of Democrats who voted for the current defense budget — 149 in the House alone — as a proxy for the members of the party who likely support a war with Iran. He added that two highly influential groups, the pro-Israel lobby and defense contractors, also support a potential war and can stand to either help or hinder politicians from getting elected. 

Members of Congress are not, however, the only people who might have a personal interest in supporting a war with Iran, Chakrabarti said. 

“It’s interesting to me that every single time the Epstein file starts to have a risk of getting any attention in the media, Trump decides to run to war with some other country. I mean, that’s literally the throw at the same time with his operation with [Nicolás] Maduro,” Chakrabarti said, referring to the capture of Venezuela’s president during a military operation on Jan. 3.

Democratic leaders in both chambers of Congress — ostensibly leading the opposition to Trump — have yet to articulate an opposition to a war with Iran. Instead, they’re asking that the administration justify its endorsement for war. 

“Look, this is serious, and the administration has to make its case to the American people,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday, after a briefing on the situation.

House minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has likewise asked that Trump explain why this conflict is necessary, seeing as Trump claimed that his previous bombing campaign in Iran last summer (also not authorized by Congress), “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capacity.

“Part of the concern that I’ve articulated, and will continue to do so, is that the president made the representation that Iran’s nuclear program was completely and totally obliterated last year as a result of actions that the administration has taken,” Jeffries said. “And so if that, in fact, was true, what is the urgency as of this moment? That’s an open question, and the American people need a real explanation.”

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