Republicans Halt Vote to Restrict Trump’s Iran Military Authority

By Staff, Agencies

House Republican leaders abruptly called off Thursday’s vote on a resolution that would have restricted President Donald Trump’s power to wage war on Iran without Congress’s approval.

The vote was expected to take place ahead of lawmakers’ Memorial Day recess, just days after a similar measure advanced in the Senate in a rare bipartisan rebuke of Trump’s military policy.

The resolution sought to require the president to obtain authorization from Congress before continuing aggression against Iran, amid growing concerns in Washington over the possibility of a prolonged regional war.

Democratic lawmakers, joined by a small number of Republicans, argued that the US Constitution grants Congress, not the president, the power to declare war.

They warned that Trump risks dragging the US into an open-ended conflict without a clear strategy.

Top Democrat Gregory Meeks said Republicans canceled the vote, fearing it would pass, and postponed it until early June.

The House had previously blocked three similar war powers resolutions earlier this year, though the margin of defeat narrowed steadily as the US-led war on Iran escalated following strikes launched on February 28.

Most Republicans and the White House defend Trump’s actions as lawful, citing his commander-in-chief powers, while the Senate recently advanced a similar war powers measure 50-47, with four Republicans joining nearly all Democrats in support.

The developments reflect growing divisions inside Washington over the scope of US involvement in the war on Iran and the constitutional limits of presidential military authority.