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For some years now, there have been the glimmerings of a bipartisan movement to restrain presidential power over foreign policy. After the bloody catastrophe of George W. Bush’s war on terror, and the manifold abuses of the Obama administration—like assassinating American citizens without trial—many thought, or hoped, that Congress would reassert its constitutional powers and duties.
So far, it hasn’t. Congress failed to restrain Donald Trump in his first term, and failed to restrain him again after his kidnapping of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro. Now Trump has started a full-blown war on Iran, in concert with Israel, without so much as a fig leaf of a legal justification.
Yet while many congressional Democrats are demanding a vote on a war powers resolution—including some surprising voices like the centrist Mark Warner (D-VA)—so far only a handful of Republicans are doing the same, such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), and the reliable gadfly Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who previously talked a big game about restraining presidential war powers, has already come out against the resolution.
It is instructive to compare George W. Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq with the joint Trump-Israel war of aggression against Iran. For one thing, the Bush administration at least granted the American people “the courtesy of lying to them,” to quote writer John Ganz. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and much of their cabinet spent a year building the case for invasion, with the result that 73 percent of Americans initially supported the war. They also got permission from Congress.
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