A rare "unity" proposal, US Person can support: Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Todd Young (R-OH) have introduced legislation to terminate authorizations to use force by Congress. These laws has been used to enable almost continuous warfare in the Middle East since the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Joe Biden promised during his campaign to end so-called 'forever wars' but recently used the authorizations to justify a bombing raid on Iranian-supported militia in eastern Syria without seeking prior congressional approval. That attack, which killed between 17- 22 people, resulted in a retaliatory missile strike that killed a civilian Pentagon contractor at Ain Al Asad airbase in Iraq.
Their bill would repeal the 1992 and 2002 laws that made a decade long conflict in Iraq possible. The Iraq War began in 2003 after Iraq invaded Kuwait prompting retaliation by the US and its allies, officially ending in 2011. A 2001 congressional authorization focused on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which justified the US invading Afghanistan after the terror attacks of September 11th. That conflict has not yet officially ended two decades later. The new proposal to end unilateral military action by the United States does not address the Afghanistan authorization.
Kaine said the latest airstrike by the Biden government showed that the executive branch has become enamored with stretching its war-making capabilities beyond the bounds of the Constitution, which entrusts declaring war to Congress. “Congress has a responsibility to not only vote to authorize new military action, but to repeal old authorizations that are no longer necessary.”, Kaine told the press. The outdated authorizations have been used to give legal cover to U.S. military operations throughout the region, targeting ISIS and other jihadist offshoots in Syria and Iraq, including a drone strike that killed the Iranian Quds Force commander, General Quasem Solemani in 2020. That assassination prompted Iran to launch a retaliatory missile strike against US forces in Iraq seriously injuring 110 service members. There is growing concern that a "tit for tat" scenario could erupt, drawing the US into a war with regional power Iran if unchecked, unilateral action in the region is not halted.
The proposal to end the authorizations has attracted supporters from a wide spectrum of Congress with bipartisan co-sponsors. The administration responded to criticism of its recent Syrian bombing by offering to brief legislators about the justification. A Democratic senator that sat in on a staff level briefing said he was not convinced the attack without prior approval was justified since there appeared to be no immediate threat to US forces in the region requiring an immediate self-defense response.