http://thehill.com/news/senate/218960-dems-want-to-prevent-iraq-20 By Alexander Bolton - 09/26/14 06:00 AM EDT
Democrats worried that President Obama is going to pull the United States into another Iraq war are signaling they’ll look to put tough restrictions on the administration’s fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), a member of the House Democratic leadership as the senior Democrat on the budget panel, said the party does not want to give the president the same blank check that Congress gave President George W. Bush in 2001.
He also wants to revise the 2001 authorization for use of military force, which Congress passed after the 9/11 attacks, to explicitly bar U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Syria.
“First and foremost, we want to make sure this does not become Iraq War 2.0,” he told The Hill.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is at the forefront of the push among Democrats for congressional restrictions on military strikes, said Tuesday that Obama should call off combat operations if he doesn’t get approval from Congress.
With Democrats pressing for restrictions, Obama’s allies in the fight over a new authorization might become Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other Republican hawks eager to battle ISIS. They oppose restraints that might undermine the military campaign and telegraph its size and duration to Islamic militants.
Senior Republicans are already chafing at the idea that Congress may be tying the commander-in-chief’s hands.
“I don’t see how you beat ISIL anytime soon with just air power and the free Syrian army. How do you get them out and how do you hold the ground once you get them out?” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a McCain ally, using an alternative acronym for ISIS.
McCain and Graham have also criticized Obama’s strategy, arguing the United States cannot rely on Arab countries to wage a ground offensive to defeat the radical Sunni insurgency.
“Name one Arab army that can defeat ISIL without substantial help from us?” Graham said. “You’re going to need boots on the ground. You’re going to need a residual force to keep this from repeating itself in Iraq.”
The differences over what kind of authorization should be provided by Congress will make it difficult for lawmakers to pick up the issue, and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in an interview with the The New York Times said he’s opposed to taking up an authorization in the post-election lame-duck Congress.
“Doing this with a whole group of members who are on their way out the door, I don’t think that is the right way to handle this,” he said in the interview.
Van Hollen this week called on Boehner to bring the House back into session so it could debate a new authorization for use of military force.
A senior Republican aide said the Senate debate will be further complicated by presidential politics, as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and perhaps Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) weigh running to succeed Obama.
“Some people are trying to project strength and a hawkish image and some people like Rand Paul are trying to manage an image that is less [hawkish],” said the aide. “Cruz and Rubio are trying to use the issue to outflank Paul on security issues.”
An aide to Boehner suggested the White House isn’t keen on Congress voting on a new authorization for military action. The aide noted that Obama has not requested anything beyond the authority to expand the training and equipping of Syrian rebels, which Congress approved as part of a spending bill last week.
“As the Speaker has said, he thinks it would be good for the country to have a new authorization for the use of military force covering our actions against ISIL, but traditionally such an authorization is requested and written by the commander-in-chief – and President Obama has not done that,” said Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman.
The administration had asked for a new authorization for military force well before the new strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The administration has said its legal authority for those strikes comes from the 2001 authorization Congress gave President Bush as part of the war on terror.
Legal scholars are divided over whether Obama needs permission from Congress to strike at ISIS and other radical Islamic groups.
“I think this is an offensive enterprise. Offensive actions require congressional approval. In fact, I think they require a declaration of war,” said Randy Barnett, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown Law School. “Congressional authorization for use of force have been taken to be the equivalent of a declaration of war.
“If he doesn’t get it, he needs to stop,” he added.
Barnett said Obama would not need such authorization to repulse an invasion or neutralize “an imminent threat” but argued the campaign against ISIS falls into neither category.
Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, argued that use-of-force resolutions have usurped Congress’s power to declare war and give the chief executive too much power.
“Many of us opposed the AUMF as a circumvention of the duty of Congress to declare war and a blank check for the president, However, it is now being treated as a type of perpetual war machine that never stops lending authority to presidents to attack anyone anywhere at anytime,” he said.
He said the authorization for use of military force Congress granted to President George W. Bush has been stretched far beyond its original intention.
Turley represented Democratic and Republican lawmakers who challenged Obama’s military intervention in Libya in 2011.
