The American Foreign Policy magazine said that President Joe Biden's recent directive to launch air strikes in Syria sparked new discussions in Washington over his war powers, as his senior Democratic allies expressed their dissatisfaction with this military move, which was carried out without prior approval from Congress.
The Pentagon announced that its fighters launched raids yesterday, Thursday, on the military sites of Iranian-backed armed groups in eastern Syria, in response to a missile attack targeting Erbil airport in northern Iraq on February 15th. Dead and wounded, including 4 American contractors.
As soon as the US military launched these raids, which were the first major military action during Biden’s presidency, senior Democratic lawmakers began to pressure the White House to obtain answers about the legal justifications that were used, the magazine noted in a report by its National Security and Defense editors. To carry out strikes.
She added that this has led to a revival of questions about the president's constitutional powers in the area of war, which were an integral part of the foreign policy battles that former President Donald Trump fought in Congress.
Representative Bernie Sanders (Biden's rival for the Democratic nomination during previous presidents) said in a statement, "I am very concerned that the strikes in Syria last night put our country on the path to continuing the war forever instead of ending it."
"This is the same path that we took nearly two decades ago ... all successive administrations of both parties have interpreted their powers in a very general way to continue military interventions throughout the Middle East and elsewhere ... this must end."
Representative Tim Kane and Chris Murphy, Democrats, also issued statements indicating "unease" about the strikes, and Kane called on the administration to fully brief Congress on the details of the resolution "expeditiously."
Observers in Washington said that Biden’s response to the current pressure coming from Congress will be an "important indication" of how he will manage his relations with the House and Senate, and whether in the future, he will yield to left-wing pressure in his Democratic party over foreign policy files.
White House spokeswoman Jane Saki said - in a statement after the attack was carried out - that the president briefed congressional leaders on the measure last night, and was in the process of briefing other lawmakers and congressional staff today, stressing that "there will be a full confidential briefing on this matter early next week at the latest." ".
Repeated attempts
Foreign Policy said that during the four years he spent in office, the former president responded to repeated attempts by a group of representatives from both parties to reduce his ability to carry out military operations without congressional approval.
And arose out of the political battles that were fought in this context - the magazine adds - discussions about the president's constitutional powers, specifically what is stipulated in Chapter Two of the Constitution, and the suspicious methods with which the United States has implemented its military commitments in the Middle East over the past two decades.
Legal experts believe that Trump's approach to dealing with the war powers puts the Biden administration in front of thorny and open question points over how to deal with the presidential powers stipulated in Article Two of the Constitution.
Trump's handling of his war powers reflected "a very comprehensive vision of the president's authority to use force abroad without permission from Congress" and a clear willingness to exploit any possible loopholes in reporting measures "to withhold information related to the use of force from the public," according to Tess Bridgman, a former Security Council legal advisor. Nationalist administration of President Barack Obama.