Congress may be focus of debate on US force against Syria

WASHINGTON: Many US lawmakers expressed support immediately after the Pentagon’s air strikes on Syria.

But President Donald Trump’s backers and critics alike warn that he needs permission from Congress if he plans a military escalation.

The cruise-missile targeting of a Syrian regime air base has rekindled the debate in Congress over the use and legality of America’s military might.

Republican and Democratic senators emerged from a classified briefing Friday largely backing Trump’s swift show of force against Syrian strongman President Bashar al-Assad for using of chemical weapons in an attack this week on his own people.

But debate swirled over what the US commander-in-chief’s next step will or should be and whether Thursday’s strike on the Syrian air base had legal justification.

It is the constant wrangling between an executive that wants to respond forcefully – and sometimes impulsively – to the latest military challenge, and a legislative branch that holds the power to declare war.

“It’s critical under our system of government that these types of actions have congressional approval, because they are acts of war,” House Republican Justin Amash told reporters.

“And what begins as a set of strikes on one night can quickly escalate into a much broader conflict.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker said the White House has no grand plan – at least not yet – for deeper engagement in Syria.

“If there’s going to be a longer term engagement, no question” that a new authorisation of the use of military force (AUMF) would have to pass Congress, he said.

“But I don’t think there’s any sense of that (expanded engagement) occurring right now.”

Senator John McCain, a national security hawk who has advocated a tougher posture on Syria for years, said a broader strategy was indeed in the making.

“We expect to hear that completed strategy very soon,” he said, while stressing he did not believe the White House was seeking a new AUMF.

The last time Congress declared war was in 1942.

Since then, presidents have unilaterally launched military operations under their constitutional authority as commander-in-chief. — AFP