(Washington) A resolution aimed at limiting the powers of Donald Trump in the war against Iran will be put to a vote on Wednesday in the US Senate, with the leaders of the Republican majority assuring however that the text is doomed to failure.
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At the end of January, even before the outbreak of the conflict, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine introduced a resolution to “order the withdrawal of American armed forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.”
Faced with a president who has extended the influence of executive power over the legislature since his return to the White House in January 2025, Tim Kaine, alongside many other Democratic parliamentarians, says he wants to reaffirm the authority of Congress, the only one authorized by the Constitution of the United States to declare war.
“Americans want President Trump to lower prices – not drag us into unnecessary and eternal wars,” the Virginia senator said in a statement on Tuesday, denouncing since Saturday a conflict launched “illegally” by the Republican.
At the end of a classified defense briefing on Tuesday between senators and in particular the head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, on the war against Iran, Tim Kaine assured AFP that no evidence had been presented by the government on the presence of an “imminent threat from Iran” to the United States.
This question of “imminent threat” is at the heart of the debate on the legality of Donald Trump’s initiation of the conflict.
Because if Congress is the only one authorized to declare war, a 1973 law allows the president to trigger a limited military intervention to respond to an emergency situation created by an attack against the United States.
In his video announcing the operation on Saturday, Donald Trump had mentioned an “imminent” threat posed by Iran, according to him, but did not convince the Democratic opposition on this subject.
A vote on Tim Kaine’s resolution is expected Wednesday afternoon in the Senate, but the fierce opposition of the Republican majority gives it little chance of being approved.
Even if adopted, the text would probably not survive a veto by the president, since two-thirds of the votes in both chambers would then be necessary.
