US lawmakers vote to stop Trump warmongering with Iran

By James Reinl

NEW YORK - (AA) - The Democrat-led House of Representatives on Thursday voted to markedly curtail the ability of President Donald Trump, a Republican, to launch a military strike against Iran.

House lawmakers voted 228-to-175 to approve a bill that would block Trump from using any federal government money for "military force against Iran" that had not been authorized by Congress.

They then voted 236-to-166 for a bill to repeal a 2002 authorization for then-President George W. Bush’s war against Iraq, which is known by the acronym AUMF and has been used since as a legal basis for other U.S. military operations.

The bills have yet to clear the Republican-led Senate and can be quashed by Trump’s veto.

Democratic lawmakers accused Trump of reckless warmongering with the Islamic Republic and criticized as provocative his decision to launch the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 2.

Writing on Twitter, Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna said the bill will “use the power of the purse to prevent war with Iran”.

“The executive branch has used the AUMF to get us involved in military conflicts without a vote in Congress for far too long,” wrote Khanna.

“Our new foreign policy consensus will reject interventionism.”

Republican lawmakers, however, said the measure would only serve to tie the hands of their commander-in-chief and limit his ability to conduct operations that could be vital to national security.

Objecting to the measure, Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it would leave the U.S. “unable to fire a shot” in retaliation to aggression from long-term foe Iran.

“The Iranian regime orchestrated over a dozen attacks against Americans in Iraq over the last three months, killing a U.S. citizen and wounding four U.S. service members, and they also hit the embassy of the United States, ordering a fiery attack on the U.S. Embassy and launched a ballistic missile attack on the United States forces,” said McCaul.

“What can our military do if Iran attacks American civilians or diplomats or commercial shipping overseas? Under this reckless amendment, the answer is absolutely nothing.”