US Senate passes War Powers Resolution, heaping embarrassment on Trump’s Iran loss

Trump’s war on Iran has finally gone too far even for the Republican-controlled US Senate — on 23 June, the upper house passed a War Powers Resolution nominally barring the president from continuing hostilities against Iran without congressional approval.

Unfortunately, the resolution is primarily a symbolic gesture. Whilst the resolution passed the lower House of Representatives at the beginning of June, and has now passed through the Senate, it won’t be passed to Trump for his approval. Likewise, it won’t carry the weight of law.

Meanwhile, Trump has called the act “poorly timed and meaningless”, and signalled his intent to ignore the will of Congress.

Republican dissent

The resolution passed by a narrow margin of just two votes, 50-48. However, this result is still quite startling because the Republicans make up the majority of the Senate, holding 53 seats to the Democrats’ 45.

As such, four Republicans voted against their own president in order to pass the motion. These were Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, and Maine’s Susan Collins. However, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman crossed the divide in the opposite direction to vote against the measure.

Four Republicans in the lower House of Representatives also previously joined the Democrats in voting the same measure through. At the time, the White House dismissed the resolution as an unconstitutional attempt to restrict presidential power.

The war powers resolution marked the tenth vote on the matter since the Trump and Israel began the war 5 months ago. It’s the first time the War Powers Resolution has been successfully invoked since it was created in 1973.

Trump’s humiliation

The Canary’s Joe Glenton previously reported that the war on Iran has been a terrible public humiliation for Trump:

US-Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.

The US has achieved none of its original war aims. Iran predictably closed the Straits of Hormuz, a vital oil channel, once attacked — creating a global energy crisis. Iran has said the war will continue until “the enemy’s inevitable and permanent humiliation, disgrace, regret, and surrender”. Trump came to power on an anti-war ‘America First’ ticket. He now faces worldwide humiliation.

On 17 June, both Trump and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkianset signed the Islamabad Memorandum. This set out a framework to wind down the war, along with significant concessions to Iran.

The head of the Iranian negotiating team described the agreement as “America’s declaration of defeat”. The Guardian also noted that the “deal met with anger, relief and incredulity” from Republicans.

‘Ready to go down for the fall’

However, the memorandum didn’t stop the Pentagon asking congress for a further $80bn, primarily for the war on Iran, on the same day the war powers measure finally passed.

In typical fashion, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to complain:

So, I have Iran on the ‘ropes,’ ready to go down for the fall… and the U.S. Senate decides to have a poorly timed and meaningless War Powers Act Vote.

These Senators have just made my job more difficult, but I will get it done, one way or the other, because I always get it done!

The war on Iran has cost the US an estimated $200bn. In the end, it resulted in the US unfreezing Iranian assets and banking, and allowing the country to export crude oil products with waivers on US sanctions. Meanwhile, the two countries haven’t yet reached an agreement on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The symbolic blow of the War Powers Resolution comes ahead of the US midterm elections in November. The Republican majority in both houses of Congress is slim, and Trump’s highly public defeat in Iran — with the accompanying loss of his party’s full backing — is a blow the far-right dictator could scarcely afford.

Featured image via the Canary