The Democratic-led US House of Representatives will vote Thursday to prevent President Donald Trump from waging war with Iran, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran have significantly worsened over the assassination of Quds Force Commander Gen. Qassem Soleimanin in a US drone strike in Iraq last Friday.
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The announcement comes less than a day after Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi airbases housing US forces in response to Soleimani's killing last week.
Pelosi said that the Democrats will move forward with the vote because their concerns were not addressed in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo briefing on the matter, Wednesday.
"Last week, the Trump administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials," Pelosi said in a statement Wednesday.
"The administration took this action without consulting Congress," she added. "This action endangered our service members, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran. Since then, the president has made clear that he does not have a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe, achieve de-escalation with Iran and ensure stability in the region."
Under the 1973 War Powers Act, the administration needs to notify Congress on major military actions but Trump, unusually, has kept the plan to kill Soleimani, one of the top military officials in the Iranian regime, under wraps.
Given this course of action, Pelosi said, members of Congress "have serious, urgent concerns about the administration's decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward. Our concerns were not addressed by the president's insufficient War Powers Act notification and by the administration's briefing today [Wednesday]."
Pelosi said that the House may also soon consider revoking the authorization of force approved after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Three successive administrations have cited that authorization as legal justification for an array of military actions across the Islamic world.
But any move to constrain Trump would likely have a difficult chance of passage in the Senate, where his Republican Party holds a majority.
