Pelosi announces vote to limit Trump's actions against Iran

The House of Representatives will vote this week on a War Power Resolution “to limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Sunday.

In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi called out Donald Trump’s “provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials.” Pelosi was referring to a Trump-ordered airstrike in Baghdad on Friday which killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

Trump’s actions “endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to her colleagues, adding she is “concerned that the Administration took this action without the consultation of Congress and without respect for Congress’s war powers granted to it by the Constitution.”

The Trump administration neglected to inform a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, known as the Gang of Eight, of its plans prior to the hit. Trump did inform Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is not a part of the Gang of Eight but was on a golf trip with Trump at the time of the attack.

Pelosi informed her colleagues this week that the House will vote on a resolution to reassert “Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days.”

The effort is being led by freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA analyst specializing in Shia militias.

A similar resolution has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA).

“We’re now at a boiling point, and Congress must step in before Trump puts even more of our troops in harm’s way,” Kaine said on Friday.

Over the weekend, Trump threatened to destroy Iranian cultural sites if Iran retaliated for the Soleimani assassination. Under international law, such targeting is considered a war crime.

In late 2019, Trump pardoned a Navy SEAL charged with war crimes, including the murder of civilians while serving in Iraq, along with several other former service members.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.