Instead of trying to end the war in Iran, Senate Republicans want to pass an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF), which would essentially give the Trump administration congressional blessing to fight it.
Since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran on Feb. 28, Democrats in Congress have held a series of war powers votes aimed at forcing President Donald Trump to end hostilities absent formal authorization from lawmakers. Such measures have failed four times in the Senate and twice in the House, with only three Republicans having voted across party lines to support the resolutions.
But as the conflict approaches the 60-day mark — a statutory deadline that could force Congress to act — Republican unease is indeed beginning to surface. Rather than backing efforts to end the war, however, some GOP lawmakers are pushing for an AUMF that would aim to impose guardrails on how Trump carries it out.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has voted against every WPR, is reportedly leading the effort. In a statement regarding one of her votes, Murkowski said Trump “should have sought authorization from Congress before striking Iran on this scale,” but added that “the hard reality is that the President has committed U.S. troops to active engagement in combat with an enemy that has targeted and killed Americans for decades.” As a result, she argued, Congress “cannot tie our military’s hands or abruptly leave our allies and partners to fight on their own.”
While it is unclear how many Republicans would support these AUMF efforts, support for continuing an open-ended conflict appears to be waning.
“By law, we got to either approve continued operations or stop,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) recently told TIME. “If it’s not approved, by law they have to stop their operations.”
Other Republican senators who have occasionally split from Trump, like Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Todd Young of Indiana, have echoed these concerns, though they have stopped short of criticizing the war itself.
Young, for example, recently told a conference hosted by Semafor that it was “time to wrap it as quickly as we can,” but at the same time it was important that the U.S. accomplish its goals, which he defined as reopening the Strait of Hormuz and taking Iran’s uranium supply. He did not indicate whether or not he would support a war authorization.
For Democrats, the prospect of an AUMF presents both an opportunity and a dilemma. Some see the push for authorization as a way to force a more meaningful debate and to compel Republicans to take political ownership of the conflict.
“Any effort that sheds more light on this and gives people more transparency into what's really happening, I think ultimately is positive both for stopping the war now and for the bigger long-term discussion” of how the U.S. enters wars, Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council, told Responsible Statecraft.
“I think it's easier for some of our colleagues to come up with some procedural justification to vote against a war powers resolution than it is to put their name on a proactive declaration of war,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on the Senate floor earlier this month. “So I want that debate.”
Murphy has been vocal about the need for a formal authorization so that the legislature takes a proactive rather than reactive stance on questions of war. In an interview, he told RS that he thought about bringing such an authorization to the floor himself. But ultimately, he concluded that the burden of drafting the legislation should fall to those who are advocating for the war.
“There's no version of an authorization that I would vote for,” he said. “If Republicans are trying to craft an authorization that would get 60 votes I think they'd have a very hard time doing that.”
Beyond the vote count, some advocates argue that an authorization might do little to constrain the war in practice, given the administration’s view that it already possesses broad authority to wage the conflict. From that perspective, the primary impact of a vote would be political, not legal: forcing lawmakers to go on record in favor of a war they have so far largely cheered on from the sidelines.
That dynamic may make it difficult to bring an authorization vote to the floor. For Republican leadership, scheduling such a debate would risk forcing members to take a clear position on an increasingly unpopular war shortly before the midterm elections.
The debate over whether to authorize the war is unfolding after more than a month of active hostilities, underscoring a pattern that has defined U.S. military engagements across administrations: presidents launch conflicts first, and Congress rarely asserts its role, even after the fact.
“Hopefully this brings this to the fore just how broken this process is,” Abdi said. “And how easy it is for a president to launch a war like this. Hopefully this war actually is going to be a point that is used under the next administration for some serious reforms.”
Meanwhile, last week, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), became the first representative from his party to introduce a War Powers Resolution that would call for the beginning of a withdrawal of forces after 60 days “unless otherwise explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a specific congressional authorization for use of military force.”
Under the War Powers Resolution, presidents are required to terminate military operations after 60 days unless Congress has declared war or passed legislation authorizing the use of force. Many legal experts say that the 60-day window only applies if the president is responding to an immediate threat, and that the resolution does not grant the president carte blanche to engage in hostilities before then.
In the meantime, Democrats in both chambers say they will continue to force votes on war powers legislation, even if the vote count has so far barely shifted. Axios reported last week that some are floating the possibility of holding a vote every day until the dynamics in Congress or on the ground change.