In 1973, as President Richard M. Nixon escalated an unauthorized bombing campaign in Cambodia, Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.) asked, “Does the President assert — as kings of old — that as Commander in Chief he can order American forces anywhere for any purpose that suits him?” Later that year, Congress answered unequivocally that he could not, overriding a presidential veto to authorize the War Powers Act.
Forty-five years later, the Senate took an important step last week toward reclaiming the war powers that Congress has abandoned in recent decades, especially as U.S. military adventurism in the Middle East grew in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In a surprising 63-to-37 vote, the Senate advanced a resolution introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's devastation of Yemen. As the first time a war-powers resolution has ever advanced in the Senate, the vote marked a dramatic move toward returning control over matters of war and peace to Congress. It is also a testament to the power of antiwar activism — in the halls of Congress and at the grass roots — to force a reckoning with the consequences of the United States' endless and unauthorized wars.
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