Congress doesn’t want to stop Trump’s Iran war. It wants to pretend it tried

While the United States fights a war against Iran, Congress is losing its constitutional war against the president.The Senate on Thursday rejected another War Powers Resolution calling for an end to hostilities in Iran, failing 49-50. The House had voted 220-204 to pass the resolution, which was the third time it had voted to end the Iran war.But even if the Senate had passed it, it would not have mattered. This War Powers Resolution was a “concurrent resolution,” which would not even go to the president for his signature or veto, the “presentment” ordinarily required for legislation to have binding legal effect. Under the Supreme Court’s reasoning in INS v. Chadha, the ability of a concurrent resolution to legally compel President Donald Trump to end the war is highly doubtful. The vote, therefore, was yet again performative. THE WORLD’S WORST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS JUST GATHERED IN NYC TO LECTURE ISRAELThe conventional understanding of modern war powers is that presidents have increasingly encroached on Congress’s authority to decide when America goes to war, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court. There is truth to that. But the Iran war exposes a deeper problem: Congress has lost the political capacity to exercise much of the constitutional power it still possesses.Instead of assembling coalitions to overcome a presidential veto, lawmakers repeatedly resort to resolutions whose constitutional force has been doubtful for more than four decades.Congress cannot indefinitely remain in limbo between authorization and opposition. If majorities believe the war with Iran serves the national interest, they should authorize it and define its limits. If they believe it should end, they should use their legislative and appropriations powers to try to end it. By doing neither, Congress is not merely losing power to the president. It is helping surrender it.The War Powers Resolution of 1973 provided that Congress could direct the president to remove American forces from unauthorized hostilities simply through a concurrent resolution, thereby preventing presidents from vetoing it.Then came Chadha in 1983. The case had nothing to do with war, but the Supreme Court held that the Constitution’s separation-of-powers structure generally requires legislative action affecting legal rights outside Congress itself to satisfy the processes of bicameralism and “presentment” to the president.The Court never specifically struck down the War Powers Resolution’s concurrent-resolution mechanism, but its reasoning cast grave doubt on its constitutionality. Congress responded that year by creating an alternative expedited procedure for bills and joint resolutions directing withdrawal, measures that satisfy presentment and can actually become law, passively acknowledging that binding the president requires Congress to confront the president.Yet Congress keeps returning to the old constitutionally suspect mechanism.The impotence of that mechanism is not theoretical. In June, both houses adopted a concurrent resolution directing Trump to remove American forces from hostilities with Iran⁠. Trump did not comply, and the war has continued.There is a legitimate objection to Chadha in the context of war powers. A president can initiate hostilities without congressional authorization, yet if Congress subsequently orders the president to withdraw, and the president vetoes that legislation, Congress needs two-thirds of both houses to override him. In practice, one-third of either chamber can therefore sustain a war Congress never affirmatively authorized.But Congress is not powerless. It controls appropriations and ultimately can pass actual legislation requiring withdrawal. Those options are politically difficult, but constitutionally, that is the point. The Constitution does not guarantee Congress an easy way to prevail against the president.Binding alternatives have been proposed. In April, a joint resolution was introduced directing Trump to comply with the War Powers Resolution’s withdrawal requirements. In May, a joint resolution was introduced to authorize the operation. Unlike concurrent resolutions, either one could have become law. But neither advanced beyond committee. Congress has instead repeatedly held floor votes around the constitutionally doubtful concurrent-resolution mechanism.We should stop pretending that every expansion of presidential war power is merely happening to Congress. Presidents certainly have seized power and courts have restricted congressional tools. But Congress has also contributed to its own decline by becoming incapable of building a consensus around decisions of war and peace.The Iraq War provides a useful contrast. In 2007, Congress passed legislation tying war funding to withdrawal requirements for American troops. Former President George W. Bush vetoed it. The House attempted to override his veto and failed, 222-203. Congress subsequently passed another funding measure without the withdrawal timetable. Congress lost that confrontation, but at least it had the confrontation.The Iran war looks different. Members repeatedly vote on a mechanism whose constitutional force has been doubtful since the Reagan administration. By using the concurrent resolution, Congress is avoiding the harder task of either authorizing the war or forcing the president to withdraw.There are procedural reasons to pass concurrent resolutions. The War Powers Resolution gives concurrent resolutions expedited treatment, and Section 5(c)’s constitutionality has never been definitively resolved by the courts. But an efficient process must not be confused with effectively exercising congressional power.Congress cannot decline to use its constitutional weapons and then conclude that it has been disarmed. If Congress can assemble majorities for performative concurrent resolutions but cannot advance binding legislation, that gap is itself part of the story of congressional decline.TRUMP CAN SET ALL THE DEADLINES HE WANTS. IRAQ CAN’T DISARM IRAN’S MILITIASFor decades, legislators have complained that presidents and the Court have diminished their war powers. The Iran war reveals a more uncomfortable truth.Congress still possesses formidable war powers. What it has lost is the political capacity to use them.Jeremy Etelson has written political commentary for the Washington Examiner and The Hill and has appeared on Fox Business and NewsNation discussing national politics. He previously worked in congressional and Maryland politics and served as a judicial law clerk in Maryland. He holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School and a master’s in political thought and intellectual history from the University of Cambridge.