Restricting Trump

In what appears to amount to a legal slap on the wrist for US President Donald Trump, the United States House of Representatives approved the War Powers Resolution aimed at limiting his ability to wage a military conflict against Iran. The Senate voted 55 to 45 - with eight Republicans joining Democrats on February 13 - to approve the resolution.

The move comes months after Trump authorised strikes that killed an important Iranian military commander earlier this year. The killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force for more than two decades, was widely and rightly criticised as a dangerous escalation prompted by Trump, who is known for his trigger-happy tendencies.  While the resolution would still allow Trump to order strikes in cases of self-defense against an imminent attack from Iran, it will restrict the president from ordering any new offensive and provocative strikes. As expected, the move faces opposition from the White House, which has presented shifting explanations for the attack that killed Soleimani. So much so that the president has threatened to veto it, claiming that removal of Soleimani from the battlefield was a de-escalatory measure. But even months after killing the top Iranian general, the Trump administration has failed to provide Congress with access to the underlying intelligence that officials claimed showed Soleimani was a threat to the US or was planning an attack against US interests.

This alone exposes the act as a deliberate provocation. Trump’s unilateral action in January had no justification and no real achievement other than bringing the US and Iran to the brink of war. If there is anything Soleimani’s killing has achieved it is more legitimacy for the Iranian regime’s narrative – and perhaps more domestic support and fodder to promote public protests against the US.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2020.

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