President Joe Biden formally announced to Congress on Sunday that the United States had launched strikes against Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and Syria.
Extremists with Iranian support launched a drone attack on a Jordanian military base last week, which resulted in the deaths of three American service members and numerous other injuries. The United States launched a string of airstrikes against Iranian military installations and militants in Iraq and Syria on Friday. According to the Associated Press, the strikes have hit over 85 targets as of Saturday.
Biden announced the strikes in a letter he addressed on Sunday to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Democratic Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray of Washington.
Aside from complying with the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force and the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, Biden said that he exercised his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive when he mandated the strikes.
A group of congressional members from both parties expressed their concerns last month about Biden’s failure to inform them before carrying out a series of strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, who had Iranian support. Following an attack on ships in the Red Sea that the Houthis suspected of having connections to Israel, Biden’s strikes were ordered and carried out.
Signed by twenty-seven members of Congress, the letter to Biden emphasized that a president doesn’t have the constitutional authority not to involve Congress in matters of war.
A senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C., an international security think tank, Barbara Slavin, gave her predictions for the outcome of the U.S. retaliation strikes in the Middle East.
Slavin stated that a lasting truce in Gaza is necessary for the Houthis to lose their justification for carrying out their attacks. She added that the success of the strikes against the Houthis would depend on this. The bombings in Iraq and Syria seem to be an effort to weaken the militias’ capacity to launch further attacks against Americans. In her opinion, they will have an impact, but unless ties between the US and Iran significantly improve, the U.S. will eventually have to reduce its presence in Iraq and Syria. At this time, that is difficult to predict.
