Tim Kaine: Congress must vote on Iraq

As U.S. involvement in Iraq deepens, Sen. Tim Kaine is refusing to let Congress off the hook without a vote on approving military operations against the Islamic State.

The Virginia Democrat continued his campaign for Congress to take a tough roll call just weeks before the pivotal midterm election. He issued a statement Monday, urging President Barack Obama and his administration to use the next two weeks to lay out the U.S. mission in Iraq and then put it up for a vote on Capitol Hill, as he believes the law requires, when lawmakers return from August recess.

“Congress and the executive have a responsibility to do the hard work to build a political consensus in support of our military missions,” Kaine said Monday.

“I will always support the president when he takes action to protect American service members and diplomats. But I am calling for the mission and objectives for this current significant military action against ISIL to be made clear to Congress, the American people, and our men and women in uniform. And Congress should vote up or down on it.”

The freshman senator has been calling for congressional authorization of military action since well before the United States began a fresh round of bombing Islamic State targets in early August.

“Congressional approval for military action is very challenging, and it’s contentious, and it’s supposed to be. While this often frustrates the executive, it is how the system is supposed to work. And when presidents follow the rule, it generally works out for the best,” Kaine said in a June floor speech.

Several other prominent senators have joined him in calling for Congress to vote on renewed military action in Iraq, including GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas. They argue that previous authorizations of military force from 2001 and 2002 are obsolete and do not hold sway over the current round of strikes that followed the Islamic State’s rout of the Iraqi military this spring.

But there’s a sense on Capitol Hill that few lawmakers really, truly want to take a vote on military action so close to the November elections. In 2013, a nonelection year, many lawmakers were privately relieved that the administration pulled its congressional authorization request for strikes on Syria after support collapsed on Capitol Hill.

“The preferred position for many in Congress … is not to be on record one way or the other in this situation,” said Robert Chesney, a professor at the University of Texas who specializes in national security law.

And even as some senators are calling on the president to articulate a military strategy in Iraq to take on the Islamic State, other more hawkish voices are urging the administration to expand the bombing campaign to neighboring Syria, where the Islamic State holds vast swaths of territory.

“The president is becoming derelict in his duties as commander in chief to protect our homeland by not aggressively confronting ISIL wherever they reside, including Syria,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Monday, using one of several acronyms for the militant forces. “They must be defeated, and they cannot be beaten without attacking their safe haven in Syria. To do otherwise is ignoring reality and placing the American homeland at risk.

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