WASHINGTON — A resolution aimed at limiting President Donald Trump’s ability to wage war in Iran has failed in the US Senate for the fourth time.
More than three dozen Democrats supported an effort by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday to block arms sales to Israel, signaling a growing discontent in the party with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the wars in Gaza and Iran.
If passed, the war-powers measure would have halted US military action in the conflict without congressional approval. Senators rejected it 52-47, largely along party lines in the chamber, which is run by the president’s fellow Republicans.
Democrats said they planned to introduce similar measures every week, even if they did not pass, so each lawmaker’s stance on the war can be recorded.
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat who voted against Sanders’ Israel resolutions, said he voted to end the Iran war but did not want to abandon Israel.
“My votes should be taken neither as an endorsement of the actions of the Netanyahu government nor as an abandonment of the state of Israel, the Jewish people, or the US-Israel relationship,” Coons said in a statement after the vote.
Republicans said the vote could hurt US efforts in the Iran war.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said the resolutions could embolden Iran and “send the message that the US is prepared to leave our ally Israel vulnerable.”
“They will not help the United States of America,” Risch said ahead of the vote.
The two resolutions to block US sales of bulldozers and bombs to Israel were opposed by all Republicans and rejected. But Sanders has repeatedly forced votes on the issue to put pressure on his colleagues to oppose Netanyahu’s regime.
Similar resolutions forced by Sanders in 2024 and 2025 were also rejected, but the number of Democrats voting with the Vermont Independent has more than doubled in less than two years amid Israeli campaigns in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon and a stepped-up campaign by party activists who have increasingly seen support for Israel as a litmus test for support.
“It’s clear that Democrats are beginning to listen to the average American who is sick and tired of spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu’s horrific wars when people in this country can’t afford housing or health care,” Sanders said after the vote.
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, voted in support of the two resolutions after opposing some of Sanders’ previous efforts. In a speech just before the vote, Kelly said that “the reckless decisions being made by Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump” led him to his decision, which he said he did not take lightly.
Among the Democrats voting against the resolutions were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Nearly 100 protesters were arrested during a demonstration on Monday calling on the two New York senators to vote in favor of Sanders’ two measures.
Led by the antiwar group Jewish Voice for Peace, the crowd of hundreds initially attempted to stage a sit-in inside the senators’ offices as they said they were abetting Israel’s intensifying attacks in Lebanon and the US-Israeli war on Iran. But they were blocked and many of the protesters were arrested.
While most Republicans have blocked the resolutions, some said they could vote differently if the war continued beyond this month.
Trump has offered varying timelines on how long the war might last. He told Fox in an interview aired on Wednesday that the war was “close to over”.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said he believes it would be in the best interests of the US to end the conflict quickly. He hoped talks succeed within the next few days.
Federal law requires congressional approval to continue military actions for more than 60 days. The US-Israel strikes began on 28 February.
The White House can extend the deadline 30 days, citing national security.
In the meantime, Democrats said they would keep proposing the resolution.
“If we’re unsuccessful, at least we’ll make clear to the American people who owns this war,” Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia told the BBC.
The law setting the timelines for congressional approval, the War Powers Resolution in 1973, was passed by Congress to constrain the ability of then-President Richard Nixon to continue waging war in Vietnam. — Agencies
Source: Saudi Gazette