Who says Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against “precipitous withdrawal” from Afghanistan and Syria.
Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but “precipitous.” Syria hasn’t even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. “It doesn’t get much more pathetic,” Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote.
The resolution is non-binding, like the Democrats’ toothless measures to stop George W. Bush’s Iraq “surge” over a decade ago. Still, taken at face value, it inverts Congress’s constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace.
When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applauded. Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward’s book repeats the president’s probing questions about how long we must stay in Afghanistan with an air of disbelief better suited to “fake news” shared on Facebook. Trump’s call late last year to bring troops home from both war-torn countries elicited bipartisan criticism and the abrupt resignation of Pentagon chief James Mattis.
To make matters worse, only three Republican senators—Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, and Mike Lee of Utah—voted to stand with their president against these endless nation-building exercises. Kentucky’s Rand Paul, who was not present for the vote, would surely have been a fourth. Even Chuck Schumer, the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have voted for the Iraq war, opposed this anti-withdrawal amendment.
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07.07.2025