Conservative rips GOP lawmakers for dodging crucial vote

The GOP-led Congress has entered a spring recess, and in a new piece for The Bulwark, prominent anti-Trump conservative William Kristol tore into the party for dodging responsibility to rein in the president's spiraling war in Iran, accusing them of abandoning the country "precisely when Congress most needs to step up."

President Donald Trump and Israel's joint military campaign against Iran is reaching the start of its second month, having so far failed to unseat the hardline regime leading the Iranian government and prompting a historically massive energy supply crisis due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Despite Trump's insistence that the war has essentially been won, the conflict shows no signs of stopping, with the Pentagon reportedly deploying more and more troops to the region and planning to request $200 billion in additional funding.

As Kristol explained in his piece from Monday, the Constitution allotted Congress the authority to declare wars, which it has not done in the case of Iran, despite the administration's claim that it is not actually a proper "war." Instead of weighing in on the conflict one way or the other, GOP leadership in the House and Senate has consistently avoided the issue, with each chamber now entering a weeks-long spring recess.

"Congress is in recess. Until mid-April," Kristol explained. "Why not? So far, the Republican majority that controls Congress has blocked it from exercising its authority over matters of war and peace. We’re a month into the war and we haven’t even had public hearings, with testimony and questioning of administration officials. Democrats’ attempts to invoke congressional power and their pleas for congressional oversight have been waved aside."

Writing further, Kristol tore into Congress for avoiding making a key vote on authorizing or blocking Trump's war powers, failing even to hold hearings on the matter that might better inform the public about the ongoing conflict. He argued that a time when the president and his executive branch are "eager to ignore Congress is precisely when Congress most needs to step up."

"Democratic members of Congress — even if joined by a few constitutional Republicans — may not be able to stop Trump," Kirstol concluded. "They may not even be able to get Congress to reconvene urgently. But they may be able to raise enough of an outcry to deter Trump from deploying ground troops, which would itself be a service to the nation. In any case, our elected officials have an obligation not to sit by while a wannabe King plunges us deeper into an unwise and unconstitutional war."

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