U.S House to Present and Vote on a Resolution to Limit Trump’s Power

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On Sunday, the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the house will vote on a war powers resolution this week. It would limit the U.S President Donald Trump‘s military actions against Iran. She warned that the order by the U.S President for a lethal strike against a top Iranian military commander risked a serious escalation of tensions in the Middle East. Pelosi wrote a letter to Democrats, she said the U.S action that killed Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani​, was an offensive and unreasonable military airstrike targeting top Iranian and Iraqi militia military officials. This action endangered members of the U.S military, diplomats, and others. Pelosi added the lawmakers were concerned that the Trump administration acted without consulting the U.S Congress and without respect for the constitutional authority.

Pelosi said the House will present and vote a resolution similar to the U.S Senator Tim Kaine presented in the U.S Senate last week. He said, “It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days”. Elissa Slotkin is a former CIA and Pentagon analyst specializing in Shiite militias and she will lead the resolution in the House. The U.S Congress has struggled to write a new resolution for ongoing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans have now shown a little interest in refreshing the debate or challenging Trump.

The Chairman of the U.S Foreign Relations Committee, Senator James Risch said last week, “This is a military operation, it is not a legislative operation, and as such it is being conducted by the military commanders, including the commander in chief”. It is noteworthy that Republican and Democratic presidents have applied the broad authority of the post-9/11 authorization and the 2002 Iraq War resolution to multiple military operations, from Libya to Syria. Kaine also said on Friday during presenting his resolution, “We’re now at a boiling point, and Congress must step in before Trump puts even more of our troops in harm’s way”.