One of the first orders of business for the new Congress may be to consider a resolution authorizing the use of force resolution in Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led combined joint mission against the Islamic State group. Such a move would be long overdue.
Operations against these militants began in June 2014, and are currently being conducted under the authority of a resolution passed three days after the September 11th attacks. That 2001 bill authorized the president to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the [9/11] terrorist attacks... or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
While the Islamic State is nominally an al-Qaida splinter group and thus fruit of the same poison tree, much has changed. Osama bin Laden is dead, the original al-Qaida organization has been dismantled and new terror leaders and groups have emerged. The country was then in the first year of the George W. Bush administration and is now in the seventh year of Barack Obama's. Only 24 Senators in the new 114th Congress were also on hand to vote for the force resolution in 2001. It is clearly time to revisit the question.
The White House supports the idea, and Senate Democrats attempted to push through legislation last Fall. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a use of force resolution in December 2014 on a party-line vote, but the bill went little further. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who now chairs the committee, opposed the legislation at the time because the White House had failed to articulate a strategy for how it would use the force once authorized, particularly in Syria. Republican leaders supported the idea in concept, but have maintained that the White House needs to make a formal request before Congress takes action. House Speaker John Boehner said last fall that an authorization resolution "would be in the nation's interest," but that it would be up to the president to "supply the wording of a resolution to authorize this force." Failing that, GOP leaders preferred to wait until the current Congress when they would hold the pen in both houses and so would be able to craft a limited grant of power.
The idea of an authorization resolution has strong public backing, by 2-to-1 margins according to polls in the fall of 2014 by CBS News and USA Today. Critical issues to be debated include how much force will be authorized, the geographic limits of the grant, whether the Congress will countenance deploying ground troops, and what time limits will be imposed. Some back a three-year authorization, others such as Sens. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, and Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, support only a one-year grant. And most proposals include sunsetting the powers granted under the open-ended 2001 force resolution.
The debate over authorizing force is likely to expose divisions in both parties. The larger, more diverse and fractious Republican conference could split between moderates who support operations against the Islamic State and a smaller group of noninterventionists who will either oppose an authorization or press for severely limiting it and the executive powers it endorses.
The dynamics on the Democratic side will be similar, with party centrists backing the White House and the large left wing faction opposing the use of force on principle. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts stands to gain most from the debate, since her probable vote against the resolution will stand in contrast to likely presidential opponent Hillary Clinton's votes in favor of both the 2001 and 2002 war authorizations in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the debate will be a rare opportunity for bipartisanship in both houses, as the noninterventionist right and pacifist left join hands against the establishment leadership.
The global war on terrorism has evolved in ways that were unforeseen in 2001, and the White House has assumed powers that were never contemplated when the war was effectively declared in the crisis period following the 9/11 attacks. After 14 years of fighting, over two administrations, Congress should be more than ready to revisit the question of where, how, when, and even if this war should continue.
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