‘Deadline is not a suggestion’
Democrats have pushed the administration for formal approval of the Iran war, and the 60-day mark would likely have been a turning point for a swath of Republican lawmakers who backed temporary action against Tehran but insisted on congressional input for something longer.
“That deadline is not a suggestion; it is a requirement,” said Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted on Thursday in favour of a measure that would end military action in Iran since Congress hadn’t given its approval.
She added that “further military action against Iran must have a clear mission, achievable goals, and a defined strategy for bringing the conflict to a close.”
During testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Hegseth said it was the administration’s “understanding” that the 60-day clock was on pause while the two countries were in a ceasefire.
Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel at the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program and an expert on war powers, said that interpretation would be a “sizeable extension of previous legal gamesmanship” related to the 1973 law.
“To be very, very clear and unambiguous, nothing in the text or design of the War Powers Resolution suggests that the 60-day clock can be paused or terminated,” she said.
Other presidents have argued that the military action they’ve taken was not intense enough or was too intermittent to qualify under the War Powers Resolution.
But Trump’s war in Iran would certainly not be such a case, Ebright said, adding that lawmakers need to push back against the administration on that kind of argument.
