By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters) – A majority of the U.S. Senate backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran on Wednesday, voting to block a Democratic-led resolution aiming to stop the war until hostilities are authorized by Congress.
The Senate voted 52-47 not to advance the war powers resolution, underscoring his party’s continuing support for the Republican president’s war policy more than six weeks after the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran.
Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network conducted on Tuesday and aired on Wednesday that the war was close to over. Also on Wednesday, the army chief of mediator Pakistan arrived in Tehran to try to prevent a renewal of the conflict, after weekend peace negotiations ended without an agreement.
It was the fourth time Democrats have forced Senate votes on war powers measures since the war began. All of them have failed in the face of opposition from every Senate Republican except Rand Paul of Kentucky.
The libertarian-leaning Paul, who often advocates against excessive military spending and for a strict interpretation of the Constitution, was the only Republican vote in favor of the resolution in the latest vote. The only Democratic “no” came from Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. Republican Senator Jim Justice of West Virginia did not vote.
Although the U.S. Constitution says that Congress, not the president, can declare war, presidents from both parties have long held the restriction does not apply for short-term operations or if the country is under immediate threat.
‘NOBODY IS COMING TO HELP YOU, IRAN’
The White House, and almost all of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress, say Trump’s actions are legal and within his rights as commander-in-chief to protect the U.S. by ordering limited military operations.
Opinion polls show the war is broadly unpopular, although views differ along partisan lines. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on March 31 found that 60% of Americans opposed U.S. military strikes on Iran, with 74% of Republicans supporting the action, compared with 7% of Democrats.
Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, accused backers of the war powers resolution of supporting Iran in a speech before the vote.
“Nobody is coming to help you, Iran, except for the 47 people over here,” he said, referring to senators who back the resolution.
Democrats said they wanted Congress to retake its constitutionally mandated power to declare war, and pull the country back from what they warned could become a long conflict.
“I urge my colleagues … to choose the path of peace before President Trump’s war becomes irreversible,” Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in a speech urging support for the vote.
Democratic Party leaders have vowed to keep bringing war powers resolutions until the conflict ends or Congress authorizes continued fighting.
The House of Representatives is expected to consider a similar measure later this week.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Chris Reese, Chizu Nomiyama, Rod Nickel)
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