The Antiwar Vote That Was Never Meant To Stop the War

On July 23, the House of Representatives voted 214–208 for a resolution calling on President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from the war with Iran unless Congress formally authorized continued military operations.

Four Republican Representatives — Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Tom Barrett of Michigan — joined 210 Democrats in supporting it. Hours later, a similar effort failed 47–49 in the Senate.

On the surface, this appeared to be a major constitutional battle. Supporters of the resolution spoke of restoring Congress’s war-making authority, while its opponents warned that restricting the president in the middle of a conflict would embolden the enemy. Yet behind this highly publicized confrontation lay a simpler reality: nearly everyone involved knew the vote would not stop the war.

The measure approved by the House was a “concurrent resolution,” not legislation that would be sent to the president’s desk for his signature. Such resolutions have no direct binding force, and the Trump administration had formally declared before the vote that it regarded the measure as legally ineffective. The Senate proposal followed a different path and was introduced as a joint resolution, but it failed to secure the simple majority required to advance for final consideration. Even if a joint resolution had passed both chambers, the president could have vetoed it, and overriding that veto would have required two-thirds majorities in both the House and the Senate — a threshold the current Congress has shown no sign of reaching.

What happened in Congress was less an attempt to end the war than an effort to give lawmakers political cover. They can now return to their districts with a roll-call vote that says, in effect, “I opposed the war.” That vote may be useful in campaign ads, fundraising emails, and election videos, even though it did not remove a single aircraft, warship, or American soldier from the region.

Democrats have an obvious reason to keep holding these votes. The midterm elections are approaching, and opposing the war in Iran is no longer politically risky. A Fox News poll released on the day of the vote found that 56 percent of voters opposed U.S. military action against Iran, 66 percent disapproved of Trump’s handling of the conflict, and 64 percent expected the war to last at least another year. A CBS News/YouGov poll likewise found that 58 percent of Americans felt confused about the war and 57 percent felt frustrated, while three-quarters said the conflict had become more difficult than the administration expected.

Opposition to the war now sells. Democrats have noticed. Party leaders intend to tie the conflict to the rising cost of living and the November elections, while repeatedly forcing Republicans to vote on whether the war should continue. The strategy makes political sense. But exploiting public anger at the ballot box is not the same as taking the political risks required to end the war.

Actually stopping it would require more than a symbolic vote. Congress controls the power of the purse. It can cut off or restrict funding for military operations, require the administration to provide clear objectives, a timetable, and an exit strategy, and refuse to approve any authorization with no meaningful limit on its scope or duration. Yet in the same week that lawmakers spoke about ending the war, the House also approved a $95 billion funding package, part of which was designated for the Iran conflict. As long as Congress continues funding the operations, speeches about war powers look more like campaign statements than resistance to the war machine.

Democrats are not alone in this contradiction. Most congressional Republicans have also been willing to surrender one of the legislative branch’s most basic powers to a president from their own party. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. That power was not included so lawmakers could invoke it only when the president belongs to the opposing party. Supporting Trump should not mean giving the White House a blank check for every conflict Washington’s foreign-policy establishment presents as another supposed national emergency.

The consequences of surrendering that authority are easy to see. American taxpayers must pay for the ammunition, troop deployments, base protection, and replacement of depleted military stockpiles. American service members must bear the risks of decisions that members of Congress would rather avoid taking full responsibility for. When events appear to be going well, politicians rush forward to claim credit. When a war becomes long, expensive, and unpopular, each side starts looking for a document that proves the other side was responsible.

That is why the four Republicans who supported the House resolution at least raised a question that the MAGA movement should not avoid: Does “America First” mean automatically supporting every presidential decision? Or does it mean forcing the entire government — from the White House and the Pentagon to Congress — to prove that a war is truly necessary to defend the American people?

Democrats will probably feature the July 23 vote in their fall campaign ads. They will say they stood against the war, even though they knew their resolution could not stop it. Republicans will say they stood behind the commander in chief, even if they cannot explain why a war without congressional authorization should continue for months. Both stories are useful at election time. Neither brings a single soldier home.

The real test does not come with symbolic votes. It comes when lawmakers must vote on funding, a formal authorization for war, and whether they are willing to take political responsibility for the consequences. Until then, the congressional battle over war powers is less an effort to end the conflict than a competition to escape its political costs.

A war that Congress refuses to authorize but continues to fund cannot be turned into a war for the defense of America through speeches alone. Whatever justification Washington offers, the bill still falls on American taxpayers, and the human cost is borne by soldiers whose lives carry no extra weight in the calculations of the midterm elections.

Travis Lynch is an international relations graduate and independent journalist. His writing focuses on U.S. foreign policy and national security.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.