WEDNESDAY’S historic vote in the US House of Representatives has split the US government over its unwinnable war against Iran when the Congress voted against President Trump’s warmongering, demanding that he must cease any further military action without the approval of Congress and withdraw US forces from the region – a humiliating defeat.
The 215-208 vote underscores the crisis Trump is facing from politicians in his own party over the illegal war, and more importantly the hatred that the US working class has for his regime’s assault on living standards, including the slashing cuts in social aid and his domestic war against workers and immigrants using ICE (Immigration, Customs and Enforcement) thugs to illegally attack, arrest and kill civilians.
In fact, Iran’s defiant defence against the US-Israeli imperialist war has broken the back of the US war machine, and its rejection of the latest so-called ‘peace deal’ by Iran’s leaders this week further pressures the Trump administration to end the war, which has lasted four months, and cost the US billions of dollars, and created global economic turmoil with rocketing oil and gas prices and rampant inflation.
On Thursday, Trump derided the vote as ‘meaningless’ and ‘unpatriotic’ on Truth Social, before describing the Republicans who chose to turn on him as ‘grandstanders who ‘should be ashamed of themselves.’
He added: ‘Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted – 4 bad Republicans and all of the Democrats – to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the war with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
‘Who would do such an unpatriotic thing? They know where the negotiations stand. The Democrats are fuelled by Trump Derangement Syndrome. They would rather have our country fail than give me another, of many, victories.’
However, Michigan Republican Congressman Tom Barratt was scathing of Trump saying: ‘Congress alone declares war, that’s something certainly we need to be protective of.’
Dismissing any retribution from Trump, he added: ‘I vote for my conscience, for what I think is right and am willing to accept that.’
During the debate, Gregory W Meeks, a Democrat, said: ‘We are trapped in a war that won’t end because an incompetent president launched it thinking of only his own ego while failing to prepare for the consequences.’
He added that diplomacy instead of ‘more bombing’ was the only exit from the conflict.
The House resolution still needs approval from the Senate, which Republicans control 53 seats to 47.
Even if it were successful in the Senate, the Iran measure is unlikely to rein in military action.
The 1973 War Powers Resolution used to force the vote requires presidents to remove US troops from any conflict Congress has not authorised within 60 days.
Mike Johnson, the speaker, told reporters moments before the vote, that passing the resolution would be a ‘very dangerous prospect’ and would weaken Trump’s ability as commander-in-chief to find a peaceful end to the conflict.
The Republican defection is a blow to Trump, who has previously applied intense pressure to the Republican Party to stay in line.
It also reflects the growing impatience to end the war, which 64 per cent of Americans said was the wrong decision in a recent New York Times-Siena College poll.
However, there is no peaceful resolution to this conflict. The raging economic financial crisis engulfing US capitalism is driving Trump to prosecute his wars against the ex-colonial countries to seize their energy and other resources and against the working class at home to force them to bear the cost of capitalism in its death agony.
The decades-long US borrowing spree means the government debt is an unimaginable $USD 39 trillion, and rising by $7 billion a day, issued in US treasury bonds.
Coming together with this funding crisis is the emerging crash of the technology shares as the AI boom is on the cusp of a crash that will dwarf the dot.com disaster of 2000.
The financial crisis is now fuelling the US war drive. It must be defeated by the working class of the US, the UK and the EU rising up to overthrow these decadent and genocide-loving regimes.
Forward to the victory of the world socialist revolution!