Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
The Republican-controlled US Senate voted late Tuesday to block a resolution aimed at ending President Donald Trump's disastrous, illegal, and deeply unpopular war on Iran as the Pentagon approved a deployment of Army paratroopers to the Middle East, the latest escalation in a conflict the White House claims has already been won.
The latest war powers resolution, led by Sen. Chris Murphy , failed to advance by a vote of 47-53, with Sen. John Fetterman joining every Republican except Sen. Rand Paul in opposing the measure. If enacted, the bill would have forced the withdrawal of US forces from hostilities against Iran.Murphy said in a statement following the vote that the consequences of the US-Israeli war on Iran, now in its fourth week, 'are stunning in their scope: higher prices for American businesses and American families, a potential global recession, the wasting of billions of dollars of hard-earned taxpayer dollars, and new conflicts in the region that didn't exist before the war began.''If our Republican colleagues will not do their duty, if they are going to engage in an effort to hide the consequences of the war, if they are going to refuse to ask questions of our incompetent national security leaders at the White House, who have waged this war without planning for the foreseeable consequences, then we will force a debate and a vote on this floor,' said Murphy. 'This war is not going to make more sense the longer it goes.”The vote came hours after Trump, speaking from the Oval Office, declared that 'this war has been won' even as his administration ordered around 2,000 soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to begin deploying to the Middle East, heightening concerns that the president intends to launch a ground invasion of Iran.“We’re keeping our hand on that throttle as long and as hard as is necessary to ensure the interests of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield,' Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday, amid reports that the administration is considering plans to 'occupy or blockade' Iran's Kharg Island—which processes the vast majority of Iran's oil exports.The New York Times reported that the new troop contingent 'includes Maj. Gen. Brandon R. Tegtmeier, the division commander, and dozens of his staff members, as well as two battalions, each with about 800 soldiers.''More of the brigade’s soldiers could be sent in the coming days,' the Times noted, citing unnamed officials. 'Taken together with some 4,500 Marines already en route to the region, the deployment of the elite Army forces brings the total number of additional ground troops dispatched to the war zone since the conflict started to nearly 7,000.'Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, said late Tuesday that 'with a possible ground invasion of Iran being planned that would trigger mass casualties and deepen a global economic and strategic crisis, only 47 senators upheld their duty to the Constitution and the American people who overwhelmingly oppose this war.''The blowback of this war is only beginning and will continue to mount—for US interests, the global economy, and the people of Iran,' Costello warned. 'Those 53 senators who voted to allow the war to continue should make clear: Do they support this war escalating? Do they want Donald Trump to commit troops to a war that they don’t even have the courage to authorize? And how much death and destruction is enough before they’ll do the right thing and act to end this war?'
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