vox--2020-01-07--The only remaining check on Trump is the 2020 election

Let ’ s start this piece with two provocative claims .
The first , which is hotly contested by legal experts , is that President Donald Trump broke the law when he ordered an airstrike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani , a powerful Iranian paramilitary leader .
The second claim is that it doesn ’ t matter .
Part of the reason why the legal question is academic is that , even if we assume the strike on Soleimani was illegal , it ’ s hardly clear whether the courts can do anything to remedy an illegal assassination .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ could issue a writ of resurrection that restores life to the people killed in this American airstrike .
And federal courts can ’ t hold a criminal trial of anyone involved in the Soleimani attack unless an increasingly partisan Justice Department agrees to prosecute .
Nor is a judicial order likely to calm tensions between the United States and Iran .
The killing of Soleimani is the latest in a series of escalations and retaliations that began with Trump ’ s decision to pull out of the nuclear deal former President Barack Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on American assets within the Middle East .
Not long after the attack , Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei , Iran ’ s supreme leader , threatened revenge .
Trump , meanwhile , threatened massive retaliation “ if Iran strikes any Americans , or American assets.
” He claimed the US would target “ 52 Iranian sites … some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture ” ( intentionally targeting “ historic monuments , works of art , or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crime ) .
Although there are some theoretical actions the courts could take to deescalate this conflict — it ’ s at least possible , for example , for the courts to order the military not to conduct future attacks on Iranian leaders without seeking congressional authorization — such judicial intervention is unlikely .
The federal judiciary frequently defers to the president ’ s decisions on national security , even when those decisions shock the conscience far more than the attack on Soleimani .
Just think about the Supreme Court ’ s decision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Korematsu v. United States ( 1944 ) , or its more recent ruling upholding Trump ’ s travel ban despite the president ’ s own statements indicating that the real purpose of the ban was to target Muslims .
If the courts can ’ t serve as a check on the executive branch , Congress could certainly step in .
The Supreme Court established very early in American history , in Little v. Barreme ( 1804 ) , that Congress may impose statutory limits on the president ’ s war powers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ step of removing Trump via impeachment if it determines he acted illegally .
But any congressional intervention would require the Republican-controlled Senate to play ball , and GOP lawmakers appear to be lining up behind Trump .
As Scott Anderson , former legal adviser to the State Department and a current fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution , told me , “ The only meaningful check is a political one , meaning elections — or maybe impeachment.
” With impeachment unlikely to succeed , that leaves the 2020 election as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a practical matter , the US has few enforceable checks against a reckless commander-in-chief .
Unlike many of our peer nations , the US doesn ’ t even have the ability to call an early election or replace our chief executive if they lose majority support in the legislature .
What does the law say about the Soleimani strike ?
There ’ s a great deal of disagreement among legal experts regarding when a president may lawfully target another nation .
Some believe that , with rare exceptions , Congress must vote to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a more permissive approach , arguing the president should be able to act to prevent sudden attacks on US personnel .
Part of the reason why this area of the law is unclear is that the courts are often reluctant to intervene in matters of national security .
“ Neither the members of this court nor most federal judges begin the day with briefings that may describe new and serious threats to our nation and its people , ” the Supreme Court explained in 2008 .
Judges are often hyperaware of the fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of national security , so they typically defer to the elected branches in cases involving “ sensitive and weighty interests of national security and foreign affairs.
” The stakes in national security cases are high , and no judge wants to hand down an order that prevents the government from stopping a terrorist attack .
As Rachel VanLandingham , a professor at Southwestern Law School and former legal adviser to senior US military commanders , told me , “ Courts have been deferential because they don ’ t want to screw it up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One consequence of judicial deference is that there is fairly little case law explaining when the executive branch can and can not take military action .
Instead , most of the legal opinions in this space were drafted by executive branch officials .
According to Jack Goldsmith , a professor at Harvard Law School who led the Justice Department ’ s Office of Legal Counsel during the second Bush administration , “ Practically all of the law in this area has been developed by executive branch lawyers justifying unilateral presidential uses of force.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fidell , an expert on national security law who teaches at Yale Law School .
“ We have drifted too far from the shore in terms of the limits that the Constitution imposes , ” he told me .
The Constitution , Fidell argued , “ requires a declaration of war unless you have an attack or an imminent attack on the United States .
“ Congress , ” he added , “ has not declared war on Iran.
” And “ we don ’ t know of any imminent threat to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was more sympathetic to the view that the Soleimani strike is legal .
She was also more sanguine about the idea that executive branch officials have taken the lead in interpreting much of our national security law .
Many of these officials , she pointed out , are service members .
VanLandingham further argued that the military tends to be risk averse “ because it is their people who are going to die.
” She agreed with Fidell that the president may respond to an imminent attack — or , as she put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authority to repel sudden attack.
” But she also emphasized that the executive branch has consistently understood this authority to extend to attacks on American service members or diplomats overseas , and that Congress has not stepped in to prevent the executive from exercising such authority .
“ We don ’ t know the intel .
We don ’ t know how imminent this attack would be , ” VanLandingham was careful to point out .
But if the US had intelligence showing that Soleimani was about to execute an attack on American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justify the airstrike .
( The question of whether the US had such intelligence is disputed , even within the administration . )
Alternatively , the Trump administration might look to nearly 20-year-old laws authorizing military force during the Bush administration .
In a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Eliot Engel last June , a State Department official suggested that 2001 and 2002 statutes authorizing military force against al-Qaeda and in Iraq might permit military force to be used against Iran when “ necessary to defend US or partner forces engaged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a stable , democratic Iraq.
” But any claim that these old statutes permit an attack on Iran , according to Anderson , “ stretches the law to its furthest limits.
” The Iranian regime , he noted , is “ seen as apostates by al-Qaeda.
” He was also dubious that the US could open hostilities against a new nation based on an authorization of military force that dealt with different circumstances nearly two decades ago .
Nevertheless , Anderson agreed that the courts were unlikely to step in , and he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enough that it is “ hard to say ” whether the Soleimani attack is “ expressly prohibited ” by either the 2001 or the 2002 law .
America ’ s legal system is not built for a president like Trump One of the striking things about much of American national security law is that it vests extraordinary trust in the president .
The 2001 authorization of military force , for example , provides that “ the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations , organizations , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ committed , or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11 , 2001.
” Does this mean Trump could announce that he has determined Canada planned 9/11 , and claim legal authorization to invade our northern neighbor ?
When I put this question to some of the experts I spoke with , they recoiled from the suggestion that Congress accidentally authorized a future war with Canada .
But it ’ s hard to find language in the statute itself that prohibits such a war .
A similar issue arose in Trump v. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ban case .
One of the legal issues at question was whether Trump had the power to cut off travel from various nations under a statute which provides that : As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the Hawaii ruling , this statute “ exudes deference to the president in every clause.
” He wasn ’ t wrong .
So much of America ’ s national security law was drafted on the assumption that the president will be a person of honor and integrity — or , for that matter , a person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will act to protect national security , even when many of us might disagree with their decisions .
Though VanLandingham takes a relatively broad view of the president ’ s ability to use military force , she insisted that something “ can be lawful but awful.
” Congress delegated vast powers to the president on the assumption that the White House will set up a process ensuring that the “ right information flowed to the appropriate decision-makers ” and that the president “ will make the best decision on hand.
” But how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just impeached for using America ’ s national security architecture to try to undermine a political rival ?
What is our system supposed to do with a president who , in the words of one recently retired Republican congressman , is “ psychologically , morally , intellectually , and emotionally unfit for office ?
” This president , in VanLandingham ’ s words , “ doesn ’ t have the best track record for putting the best interests ” of national security first .
And yet Trump still enjoys the same broad powers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did act in good faith .
“ Our country has , quite self-consciously , given one person , the president , an enormous sprawling military and enormous discretion to use it in ways that can easily lead to a massive war , ” Goldsmith , the Harvard professor , wrote on Twitter .
“ That is our system : one person decides.
” In such a system , we can not rely on the courts to save us from the president , nor can we expect this congress to do so .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that remedy can not be used until November .

Let’s start this piece with two provocative claims. The first, which is hotly contested by legal experts, is that President Donald Trump broke the law when he ordered an airstrike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a powerful Iranian paramilitary leader.
The second claim is that it doesn’t matter.
Part of the reason why the legal question is academic is that, even if we assume the strike on Soleimani was illegal, it’s hardly clear whether the courts can do anything to remedy an illegal assassination. It’s not like a judge could issue a writ of resurrection that restores life to the people killed in this American airstrike. And federal courts can’t hold a criminal trial of anyone involved in the Soleimani attack unless an increasingly partisan Justice Department agrees to prosecute. Nor is a judicial order likely to calm tensions between the United States and Iran.
The killing of Soleimani is the latest in a series of escalations and retaliations that began with Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear deal former President Barack Obama struck with Iran and includes Iranian attacks on American assets within the Middle East. Not long after the attack, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, threatened revenge.
His efforts & path won’t be stopped by his martyrdom, by God’s Power, rather a #SevereRevenge awaits the criminals who have stained their hands with his & the other martyrs’ blood last night. Martyr Soleimani is an Intl figure of Resistance & all such people will seek revenge. /3 — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 3, 2020
Trump, meanwhile, threatened massive retaliation “if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets.” He claimed the US would target “52 Iranian sites … some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture” (intentionally targeting “historic monuments, works of art, or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples” is a war crime).
Although there are some theoretical actions the courts could take to deescalate this conflict — it’s at least possible, for example, for the courts to order the military not to conduct future attacks on Iranian leaders without seeking congressional authorization — such judicial intervention is unlikely.
The federal judiciary frequently defers to the president’s decisions on national security, even when those decisions shock the conscience far more than the attack on Soleimani. Just think about the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold detention centers for Japanese Americans in Korematsu v. United States (1944), or its more recent ruling upholding Trump’s travel ban despite the president’s own statements indicating that the real purpose of the ban was to target Muslims.
If the courts can’t serve as a check on the executive branch, Congress could certainly step in. The Supreme Court established very early in American history, in Little v. Barreme (1804), that Congress may impose statutory limits on the president’s war powers. Congress could also take the more drastic step of removing Trump via impeachment if it determines he acted illegally.
But any congressional intervention would require the Republican-controlled Senate to play ball, and GOP lawmakers appear to be lining up behind Trump. As Scott Anderson, former legal adviser to the State Department and a current fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told me, “The only meaningful check is a political one, meaning elections — or maybe impeachment.”
With impeachment unlikely to succeed, that leaves the 2020 election as the last remaining check on Trump. As a practical matter, the US has few enforceable checks against a reckless commander in chief. Unlike many of our peer nations, the US doesn’t even have the ability to call an early election or replace our chief executive if they lose majority support in the legislature.
What does the law say about the Soleimani strike?
There’s a great deal of disagreement among legal experts regarding when a president may lawfully target another nation. Some believe that, with rare exceptions, Congress must vote to permit such a strike. Others take a more permissive approach, arguing the president should be able to act to prevent sudden attacks on US personnel.
Part of the reason this area of the law is unclear is that the courts are often reluctant to intervene in matters of national security. “Neither the members of this court nor most federal judges begin the day with briefings that may describe new and serious threats to our nation and its people,” the Supreme Court explained in 2008. Judges are often hyperaware of the fact that they know very little about matters of national security, so they typically defer to the elected branches in cases involving “sensitive and weighty interests of national security and foreign affairs.”
The stakes in national security cases are high, and no judge wants to hand down an order that prevents the government from stopping a terrorist attack. As Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School and former legal adviser to senior US military commanders, told me, “Courts have been deferential because they don’t want to screw it up and not have a country anymore.”
One consequence of judicial deference is that there is fairly little case law explaining when the executive branch can and cannot take military action. Instead, most of the legal opinions in this space were drafted by executive branch officials. According to Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School who led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during the second Bush administration, “Practically all of the law in this area has been developed by executive branch lawyers justifying unilateral presidential uses of force.”
These lawyers, Goldsmith warned, “view unilateral presidential power very broadly.”
I heard similar concerns from Eugene Fidell, an expert on national security law who teaches at Yale Law School. “We have drifted too far from the shore in terms of the limits that the Constitution imposes,” he told me. The Constitution, Fidell argued, “requires a declaration of war unless you have an attack or an imminent attack on the United States.
“Congress,” he added, “has not declared war on Iran.” And “we don’t know of any imminent threat to the United States.”
VanLandingham, meanwhile, was more sympathetic to the view that the Soleimani strike is legal. She was also more sanguine about the idea that executive branch officials have taken the lead in interpreting much of our national security law. Many of these officials, she pointed out, are service members. VanLandingham further argued that the military tends to be risk averse “because it is their people who are going to die.”
She agreed with Fidell that the president may respond to an imminent attack — or, as she put it, “The president has inherent authority to repel sudden attack.” But she also emphasized that the executive branch has consistently understood this authority to extend to attacks on American service members or diplomats overseas, and that Congress has not stepped in to prevent the executive from exercising such authority.
“We don’t know the intel. We don’t know how imminent this attack would be,” VanLandingham was careful to point out. But if the US had intelligence showing that Soleimani was about to execute an attack on American personnel, that would be sufficient to justify the airstrike. (The question of whether the US had such intelligence is disputed, even within the administration.)
Alternatively, the Trump administration might look to nearly 20-year-old laws authorizing military force during the Bush administration. In a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Eliot Engel last June, a State Department official suggested that 2001 and 2002 statutes authorizing military force against al-Qaeda and in Iraq might permit military force to be used against Iran when “necessary to defend US or partner forces engaged in counterterrorism operations or operations to establish a stable, democratic Iraq.”
But any claim that these old statutes permit an attack on Iran, according to Anderson, “stretches the law to its furthest limits.” The Iranian regime, he noted, is “seen as apostates by al-Qaeda.” He was also dubious that the US could open hostilities against a new nation based on an authorization of military force that dealt with different circumstances nearly two decades ago.
Nevertheless, Anderson agreed that the courts were unlikely to step in, and he warned that the statutes themselves are broad enough that it is “hard to say” whether the Soleimani attack is “expressly prohibited” by either the 2001 or the 2002 law.
America’s legal system is not built for a president like Trump
One of the striking things about much of American national security law is that it vests extraordinary trust in the president. The 2001 authorization of military force, for example, provides that “the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”
Does this mean Trump could announce that he has determined Canada planned 9/11 and claim legal authorization to invade our northern neighbor? When I put this question to some of the experts I spoke with, they recoiled from the suggestion that Congress accidentally authorized a future war with Canada. But it’s hard to find language in the statute itself that prohibits such a war.
A similar issue arose in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), the travel ban case. One of the legal issues at question was whether Trump had the power to cut off travel from various nations under a statute that provides that:
Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the Hawaii ruling, this statute “exudes deference to the president in every clause.” He wasn’t wrong.
So much of America’s national security law was drafted on the assumption that the president will be a person of honor and integrity — or, for that matter, a person of basic competence and judgment — who will act to protect national security, even when many of us might disagree with their decisions.
Though VanLandingham takes a relatively broad view of the president’s ability to use military force, she insisted that something “can be lawful but awful.” Congress delegated vast powers to the president on the assumption that the White House will set up a process ensuring that the “right information flowed to the appropriate decision-makers” and that the president “will make the best decision on hand.”
But how can you trust a president who was just impeached for using America’s national security architecture to try to undermine a political rival? What is our system supposed to do with a president who, in the words of one recently retired Republican Congress member, is “psychologically, morally, intellectually, and emotionally unfit for office?”
This president, in VanLandingham’s words, “doesn’t have the best track record for putting the best interests” of national security first. Yet Trump still enjoys the same broad powers and massive deference enjoyed by presidents who did act in good faith.
“Our country has, quite self-consciously, given one person, the president, an enormous sprawling military and enormous discretion to use it in ways that can easily lead to a massive war,” Goldsmith, the Harvard professor, tweeted. “That is our system: one person decides.”
In such a system, we cannot rely on the courts to save us from the president, nor can we expect this Congress to do so. There is only one remedy remaining, and that remedy cannot be used until November.


vox--2020-01-07--Bernie Sanders can unify Democrats and beat Trump in 2020

Vox writers are making the best case for the leading Democratic candidates — defined as those polling above 10 percent in national averages .
This article is the first in the weekly series .
Vox does not endorse individual candidates .
The case for Bernie Sanders is that he is the unity candidate .
The Vermont senator is unique in combining an authentic , values-driven political philosophy with a surprisingly pragmatic , veteran-legislator approach to getting things done .
This pairing makes him the enthusiastic favorite of non-Republicans who don ’ t necessarily love the Democratic Party , without genuinely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats .
If he can pull the party together , it would set him up to be the strongest of the frontrunners to challenge President Donald Trump .
Sanders breaks from the pack in constructive ways on foreign and monetary policy , where the president has an unusual amount of freedom to act .
And in the legislative arena , where any president is going to be sharply constrained , he stands the best chance of getting the left on board with the sure-to-be-disappointing compromises that will be necessary to advance the ball @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the fears about Sanders expressed by Democratic insiders — fears that have trickled into much of the mainstream media coverage of his campaign — are better understood as disputes with his followers than as real problems with the man himself .
His extremely online loyalists ( themselves only a minority of his supporters , as with any candidate ) tend to be both highly ideological and highly antagonistic .
Some , including younger supporters , seem to lack a broader perspective on events .
They are unrealistically optimistic about what a Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sanders ’ s rivals , and simply lack appreciation of how small the differences within the Democratic field are , especially compared with the gaping void between essentially all Democrats and all Republicans under modern polarized conditions .
That said , a primary is about picking a nominee , not about picking whose cheering chorus you find most congenial on Twitter .
Sanders has good ideas on the topics in which the choice between Democrats matters most , he has a plausible electability case , he ’ s been a pragmatic and reasonably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , by far , the best way to put toxic infighting to rest and bring the rising cohort of left-wing young people into the tent — for both the 2020 campaign and the long-term future .
Sanders is more banal than people think Much of Sanders ’ s campaign rhetoric appears to suggest a wildly naive or uninformed understanding of how the American political system operates .
He says we ’ ll completely transform the health care system and pass a massive Green New Deal and eliminate all student debt , all while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wage , enormously boosting spending on K-12 education , and overhauling the immigration system — and there ’ s a sweeping housing plan in there to boot .
These stances animate Sanders ’ s hardcore supporters , who turn his rivals ’ understandable reluctance to sign on to a patently unrealistic series of promises as a litmus test .
To veterans of Beltway politics , or simply folks who ’ ve been around long enough and watched cycles of exaggerated hopes followed by disappointments , this can be troubling .
Would a President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bangs the table loudly enough , a “ political revolution ” will allow for a top-to-bottom restructuring of the American health care system ?
Would he reject feasible paths in favor of insisting on ideas that can ’ t pass ?
The worry that Sanders would run an ineffective White House if he won in November is a much more reasonable fear than is vague annoyance at his rhetoric .
The good news is that Sanders is someone who ’ s served on Capitol Hill for nearly 30 years , not a 20-something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on his Twitter bio .
Sanders has sometimes staked out lonely , courageous stands ( against the Iraq War or the Defense of Marriage Act , which barred same-sex couples from enjoying the same federal benefits as married couples ) .
But he ’ s never pulled a Freedom Caucus-type stunt and refused to cast a pragmatic vote in favor of half a loaf .
Sanders has always talked about his blue-sky political ideals as something he believed in passionately , but he separated that idealism from his practical legislative work , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voted for former President Barack Obama ’ s Children ’ s Health Insurance Program reauthorization bill in 2009 , and again for the Affordable Care Act in 2010 .
He voted for the Dodd-Frank bill and every other contentious piece of Obama-era legislation .
He sometimes cast protest votes against bipartisan bills that sailed through Congress with huge majorities ( like the lame-duck tax-and-stimulus deal the White House reached with congressional legislators at the end of 2010 ) , but whenever his vote was needed to incrementally advance some progressive cause , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been somewhat forgotten in the wake of the 2016 primary campaign : While Obama was in the White House , it was Sen. Elizabeth Warren who attracted the ire of administration officials and congressional leaders by occasionally spiking executive-branch nominees or blowing up bipartisan deals .
The policy area in which Sanders has had the most practical influence is veterans-related issues , as he chaired the Senate Veterans ’ Affairs Committee for a two-year span , during which Congress enacted substantive reform to the veterans ’ health system .
Given the objective constellation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this required bipartisan support , so Sanders ( working mainly with Republican Sen. John McCain ) produced a bipartisan bill that , in exchange for a substantial boost in funding , made some concessions to conservatives in creating “ private options ” for veterans to seek care outside of the publicly run Veterans Health Administration .
It ’ s fine if you want to be annoyed that Sanders ’ s self-presentation as a revolutionary who will sweep all practical obstacles aside is at odds with his reality as an experienced legislator who does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But there ’ s no reason to be worried that Sanders is a deluded radical who doesn ’ t understand how the government works .
Sanders is right on a few key topics The truth is that on most issues , the policy outputs of a Sanders administration just wouldn ’ t be that different from those of a Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg administration .
Whether a new president promises continuity with Obama or a break with neoliberalism , the constraints will realistically come from Congress , where the median member @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative than anyone in the Democratic field .
But Sanders does have some ideas with unique appeal , particularly on foreign policy .
The evidence is overwhelming that most primary voters don ’ t particularly care about foreign policy , and consequently , it isn ’ t discussed very much during the campaign .
That ’ s a shame ; it ’ s an important topic on substance , and it ’ s also the area in which the president has the most flexibility .
Presidents are constrained in their conduct on foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ factors , but less so than elsewhere .
Whatever Obama said or did or wanted , there ’ s no way he could have gotten Medicare-for-all enacted .
But he could have intervened more forcefully in Syria had he desired to do so , just as he could have avoided intervening in Libya .
It ’ s clear that Sanders has a real desire to challenge aspects of the bipartisan foreign policy consensus , compared with the rest of the field .
He ’ s much more critical of Israel than most people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a leading critic of the alliance with Saudi Arabia , and he ’ s aligned himself with the Latin American left in ways that Warren doesn ’ t .
These ideas are coded as “ extreme ” in Washington , where there ’ s significant bipartisan investment in the status quo .
But polls show that most voters question the narratives of American exceptionalism , favor a reduced global military footprint and less defense spending , and are skeptical of the merits of profligate arms sales .
In practice , essentially every president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his campaign rhetoric suggested ( Trump hasn ’ t broken up NATO ; Obama never sat down with the leadership of Iran ) , so the differences are likely to be more modest than the rhetorical ones .
But differences are welcome and needed .
The misbegotten invasion of Iraq should have , but largely didn ’ t , shake up the establishment “ blob ” that ’ s obsessed with pursuing US military hegemony and endless entanglements in the Middle East .
Recent reporting by the Washington Post revealed that military and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lying to the public about the course of the war in Afghanistan — and it barely made a dent in domestic politics .
Nobody should have illusions about Sanders somehow unilaterally ushering in a bold new era of world peace , but he is by far the most likely person in the race to push back against expansive militarism — and that ’ s worth considering .
Foreign policy isn ’ t the only hidebound institution he is poised to shake up , either .
Monetary policy attracts even less attention in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Washington Post did survey the candidates ’ views on interest rates when it asked whether the Federal Reserve ’ s current rates are too high .
The results were fascinating .
Buttigieg , Biden , and Warren all demurred , citing the dogma that the Federal Reserve should stay independent of politics ( though Warren , to her credit , made a strong statement in a subsequent speech on the economy about the need to emphasize full employment ) .
Sanders , by contrast , offered a clear statement , saying he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decision to raise interest rates in 2015-2018 ” because “ raising rates should be done as a last resort , not to fight phantom inflation.
” Sens .
Cory Booker and Michael Bennet , two minor candidates who aren ’ t really seen as Sanders ’ s fellow travelers when it comes to ideology , had somewhat similar things to say .
“ Historically , the Federal Reserve raises interest rates when the economy has reached full employment , ” Booker said , adding that “ our economy ’ s not there yet.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Fed “ has often fallen short of its full employment mandate , which has harmed workers , especially those trying to make ends meet.
” He also said that his appointees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors “ will prioritize the employment mandate and consider every tool available to meet that mandate.
” Unfortunately , this is a niche issue many people don ’ t care about .
Almost everyone does and should care about “ the economy , ” though , and the main government institution responsible for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Fed .
What ’ s more , this is a particularly important issue precisely because it ’ s a little bit obscure .
Any Democratic president ’ s Environmental Protection Agency director will come from the universe of “ people the main environmental groups like and for whom moderate senators are willing to vote , ” because that ’ s how politics works .
But there are no strong interest groups that lobby around monetary policy .
A president who wants to install well-qualified people inclined to side with Sanders/Bennet/Booker will probably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a president who doesn ’ t care ( like Obama ) will probably end up appointing people whose views are all over the map ( which is indeed what happened with Obama ) .
These aren ’ t the only two issues in America that matter , but they ’ re the main ones in which different nominees are likely to lead to different results .
Almost everything that ’ s currently being debated , by contrast , is pointless .
If you were designing an electability candidate in a lab , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You ’ d probably come up with someone like moderate Montana Gov .
Steve Bullock , who recently dropped out of the race after receiving essentially no public support or donations .
Bullock turned out to be poorly suited to a modern primary process that is heavily weighted toward a candidate ’ s skill at attracting attention , but his proven track record of winning in a conservative state gave me confidence that he ’ d be an effective nominee , had that somehow happened .
Perhaps the diplomatic and popular Minnesota @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Minnesota is not Montana , but Klobuchar consistently overperforms baseline partisan fundamentals in a state that ’ s only modestly Democratic-leaning .
Yet she ’ s trailing the top four in the Democratic field .
The reality is that four candidates — Sanders , Biden , Buttigieg , and Warren — have pulled away in a year in which Democrats say they are focused on electability .
All of these candidates have obvious weaknesses .
Of the crew , Sanders has arguably the best case to make for electability .
His electoral track @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s is weak , Buttigieg ’ s is almost nonexistent , and Biden ’ s is mostly lacking in relevant information .
Winning races in Vermont is less impressive than winning them in Montana .
And there are certainly plenty of left-wing Democrats who win while underperforming simply because they hold safe seats ( Warren fits that mold ) , as well as plenty of moderate Democrats who overperform in tough races even while losing ( former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill is a good example ) .
But Sanders appears to be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He consistently runs ahead of Democratic presidential nominees in his home state , which suggests he knows how to overcome the “ socialist ” label , get people to vote for him despite some eccentricities , and even peel off some Republican votes .
Sanders first got to Congress by winning a tough three-way race in 1990 , when Vermont was an only slightly blue-leaning state .
He went on to consistently run ahead of Democratic presidential campaigns as a candidate for Vermont ’ s at-large seat in the US House of Representatives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 58 percent to Bill Clinton ’ s 46 ( it was a strong state for presidential candidate Ross Perot , but Bernie also faced a “ third-party ” challenge from a Democrat ) .
• In 1996 , Sanders got 55 percent to Clinton ’ s 53 percent .
• In 2000 , Sanders got 69 percent to Al Gore ’ s 51 percent .
• In 2004 , Sanders got 67 percent to John Kerry ’ s 59 percent .
• Sanders got elected to the Senate in 2006 , so he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2008 or 2016 .
But in 2012 , he won 71 percent to Obama ’ s 67 percent .
This is not definitive proof of Sanders ’ s skills — over the past 20 years , these haven ’ t really been vigorously contested races .
Yet because those weren ’ t tough races , it would have been easy for Vermonters who had doubts about Sanders to cast meaningless protest votes for his opponents .
Sanders also appears to be able to make lemonade out of the whole “ not officially a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of some non-Republicans who backed Perot in the 1990s and , more recently , other third-party candidates such as Jill Stein , Ralph Nader , and Gary Johnson .
Indeed , one noteworthy thing about Sanders is that in head-to-head polling matchups against Trump , he tends to do better than you ’ d expect simply by looking at his favorable ratings .
Sanders ’ s popularity seems to be concentrated among certain blocks of persuadable voters ( likely those considering a third-party vote ) , while a chunk of those who disapprove @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t like his lack of party spirit but will vote for him anyway .
At times Sanders embraces unpopular positions , like passing broad tax increases to finance Medicare-for-all or decriminalizing unauthorized entry into the United States .
Compared with some hypothetical other Democrat , this could make him a weak choice .
But he ’ s running against a field that also takes unpopular positions .
It ’ s worth noting that even Biden has come out in favor of opening government insurance programs to the undocumented , allowing taxpayer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the death penalty .
At the end of the day , Sanders ’ s record is not nearly as scary as many establishment Democrats fear .
His “ revolution ” rhetoric doesn ’ t make sense to me , but he ’ s been an effective mayor and legislator for a long time , and he knows how to get things done — and how hard it is to get them done .
Some of his big ideas are not so hot on the merits , but it ’ s not worth worrying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so unrealistic .
And on a couple of issues where the next president will probably have a fair amount of latitude , Sanders breaks from the pack in good ways .
He ’ s perhaps not an ideal electability choice , but his track record on winning elections is solid and his early polling is pretty good .
There ’ s no particular reason to think he ’ d be weaker than the other three top contenders , and at least some reason to think he ’ d be stronger .
A Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ employment , a tendency to shy away from launching wars , an executive branch that actually tries to enforce environmental protection and civil rights laws , and a situation in which bills that both progressives and moderates can agree on get to become law .
That ’ s a formula the vast majority of mainstream Democrats should be able to embrace .
Lots of moderate Democrats nonetheless find it annoying that Sanders and some of his followers are so committed to painting mainstream Democrats in such dark hues .
And it is annoying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stop being annoying if he loses the nomination .
If anything , they will be more annoying than ever as some refuse to get enthusiastic about the prospect of beating Trump .
But if Sanders wins , partisan Democrats who just want to beat Trump will magically stop finding Bernie superfans annoying — the causes will be aligned , and the vast majority of people who want Trump out of the White House can collaborate in peace .
That leaves us where we started .
The president really does have a good deal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If it ’ s very important to you that the US maintains a hawkish military posture in the Middle East , that ’ s a good reason to worry a lot about Sanders .
But most likely , a Sanders presidency will simply mean that young progressive activists are less sullen and dyspeptic about the incremental policy gains that would result from any Democrat occupying the presidency .
It ’ ll also mean a foreign policy that errs a bit more on the side of restraint compared with what you ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well as an approach to monetary policy that errs a bit more on the side of full employment .
That ’ s a pretty good deal , and you don ’ t need to be a socialist to see it .

Vox writers are making the best case for the leading Democratic candidates. This article is the first in the series. Read them all here. Vox does not endorse individual candidates.
The case for Bernie Sanders is that he is the unity candidate.
The Vermont senator is unique in combining an authentic, values-driven political philosophy with a surprisingly pragmatic, veteran-legislator approach to getting things done. This pairing makes him the enthusiastic favorite of non-Republicans who don’t necessarily love the Democratic Party, without genuinely threatening what’s important to partisan Democrats. If he can pull the party together, it would set him up to be the strongest of the frontrunners to challenge President Donald Trump.
Sanders breaks from the pack in constructive ways on foreign and monetary policy, where the president has an unusual amount of freedom to act. And in the legislative arena, where any president is going to be sharply constrained, he stands the best chance of getting the left on board with the sure-to-be-disappointing compromises that will be necessary to advance the ball at all on important issues.
Most of the fears about Sanders expressed by Democratic insiders — fears that have trickled into much of the mainstream media coverage of his campaign — are better understood as disputes with his followers than as real problems with the man himself.
His extremely online loyalists (themselves only a minority of his supporters, as with any candidate) tend to be both highly ideological and highly antagonistic. Some, including younger supporters, seem to lack a broader perspective on events. They are unrealistically optimistic about what a Sanders administration could achieve, unreasonably down on Sanders’s rivals, and simply lack appreciation of how small the differences within the Democratic field are, especially compared with the gaping void between essentially all Democrats and all Republicans under modern polarized conditions.
That said, a primary is about picking a nominee, not about picking whose cheering chorus you find most congenial on Twitter. Sanders has good ideas on the topics in which the choice between Democrats matters most, he has a plausible electability case, he’s been a pragmatic and reasonably effective legislator, and his nomination is, by far, the best way to put toxic infighting to rest and bring the rising cohort of left-wing young people into the tent — for both the 2020 campaign and the long-term future.
Sanders is more banal than people think
Much of Sanders’s campaign rhetoric appears to suggest a wildly naive or uninformed understanding of how the American political system operates. He says we’ll completely transform the health care system and pass a massive Green New Deal and eliminate all student debt, all while making college free, increasing the minimum wage, enormously boosting spending on K-12 education, and overhauling the immigration system — and there’s a sweeping housing plan in there to boot.
These stances animate Sanders’s hardcore supporters, who turn his rivals’ understandable reluctance to sign on to a patently unrealistic series of promises as a litmus test.
To veterans of Beltway politics, or simply folks who’ve been around long enough and watched cycles of exaggerated hopes followed by disappointments, this can be troubling. Would a President Sanders really think that if he just bangs the table loudly enough, a “political revolution” will allow for a top-to-bottom restructuring of the American health care system? Would he reject feasible paths in favor of insisting on ideas that can’t pass?
There is no “middle ground” when it comes to climate policy. If we don't commit to fully transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels, we will doom future generations. Fighting climate change must be our priority, whether fossil fuel billionaires like it or not. — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 10, 2019
The worry that Sanders would run an ineffective White House if he won in November is a much more reasonable fear than is vague annoyance at his rhetoric.
The good news is that Sanders is someone who’s served on Capitol Hill for nearly 30 years, not a 20-something, far-left hardliner with a red rose on his Twitter bio. Sanders has sometimes staked out lonely, courageous stands (against the Iraq War or the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred same-sex couples from enjoying the same federal benefits as married couples). But he’s never pulled a Freedom Caucus-type stunt and refused to cast a pragmatic vote in favor of half a loaf.
Sanders has always talked about his blue-sky political ideals as something he believed in passionately, but he separated that idealism from his practical legislative work, which was grounded in vote counts. He voted for former President Barack Obama’s Children’s Health Insurance Program reauthorization bill in 2009, and again for the Affordable Care Act in 2010. He voted for the Dodd-Frank bill and every other contentious piece of Obama-era legislation.
He sometimes cast protest votes against bipartisan bills that sailed through Congress with huge majorities (like the lame-duck tax-and-stimulus deal the White House reached with congressional legislators at the end of 2010), but whenever his vote was needed to incrementally advance some progressive cause, it was there.
Indeed, this has been somewhat forgotten in the wake of the 2016 primary campaign: While Obama was in the White House, it was Sen. Elizabeth Warren who attracted the ire of administration officials and congressional leaders by occasionally spiking executive-branch nominees or blowing up bipartisan deals.
The policy area in which Sanders has had the most practical influence is veterans-related issues, as he chaired the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee for a two-year span, during which Congress enacted substantive reform to the veterans’ health system.
Given the objective constellation of political forces at the time, this required bipartisan support, so Sanders (working mainly with Republican Sen. John McCain) produced a bipartisan bill that, in exchange for a substantial boost in funding, made some concessions to conservatives in creating “private options” for veterans to seek care outside of the publicly run Veterans Health Administration.
It’s fine if you want to be annoyed that Sanders’s self-presentation as a revolutionary who will sweep all practical obstacles aside is at odds with his reality as an experienced legislator who does typical senator stuff in a typical way. But there’s no reason to be worried that Sanders is a deluded radical who doesn’t understand how the government works.
Sanders is right on a few key topics
The truth is that on most issues, the policy outputs of a Sanders administration just wouldn’t be that different from those of a Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg administration. Whether a new president promises continuity with Obama or a break with neoliberalism, the constraints will realistically come from Congress, where the median member is all but certain to be more conservative than anyone in the Democratic field.
But Sanders does have some ideas with unique appeal, particularly on foreign policy.
The evidence is overwhelming that most primary voters don’t particularly care about foreign policy, and consequently, it isn’t discussed very much during the campaign. That’s a shame; it’s an important topic on substance, and it’s also the area in which the president has the most flexibility. Presidents are constrained in their conduct on foreign policy by dozens of institutional and political factors, but less so than elsewhere.
Whatever Obama said or did or wanted, there’s no way he could have gotten Medicare-for-all enacted. But he could have intervened more forcefully in Syria had he desired to do so, just as he could have avoided intervening in Libya.
It’s clear that Sanders has a real desire to challenge aspects of the bipartisan foreign policy consensus, compared with the rest of the field. He’s much more critical of Israel than most people in national politics, he’s a leading critic of the alliance with Saudi Arabia, and he’s aligned himself with the Latin American left in ways that Warren doesn’t.
These ideas are coded as “extreme” in Washington, where there’s significant bipartisan investment in the status quo. But polls show that most voters question the narratives of American exceptionalism, favor a reduced global military footprint and less defense spending, and are skeptical of the merits of profligate arms sales.
In practice, essentially every president ends up governing with more continuity than his campaign rhetoric suggested (Trump hasn’t broken up NATO; Obama never sat down with the leadership of Iran), so the differences are likely to be more modest than the rhetorical ones.
But differences are welcome and needed. The misbegotten invasion of Iraq should have, but largely didn’t, shake up the establishment “blob” that’s obsessed with pursuing US military hegemony and endless entanglements in the Middle East. Recent reporting by the Washington Post revealed that military and political leaders across three administrations have been lying to the public about the course of the war in Afghanistan — and it barely made a dent in domestic politics.
Nobody should have illusions about Sanders somehow unilaterally ushering in a bold new era of world peace, but he is by far the most likely person in the race to push back against expansive militarism — and that’s worth considering.
Foreign policy isn’t the only hidebound institution he is poised to shake up, either.
Pro-worker monetary policy could make a real difference
Monetary policy attracts even less attention in the primary than does foreign policy. But the Washington Post did survey the candidates’ views on interest rates when it asked whether the Federal Reserve’s current rates are too high. The results were fascinating.
Buttigieg, Biden, and Warren all demurred, citing the dogma that the Federal Reserve should stay independent of politics (though Warren, to her credit, made a strong statement in a subsequent speech on the economy about the need to emphasize full employment).
Sanders, by contrast, offered a clear statement, saying he “disagreed with the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates in 2015-2018” because “raising rates should be done as a last resort, not to fight phantom inflation.”
Sens. Cory Booker and Michael Bennet, two minor candidates who aren’t really seen as Sanders’s fellow travelers when it comes to ideology, had somewhat similar things to say. “Historically, the Federal Reserve raises interest rates when the economy has reached full employment,” Booker said, adding that “our economy’s not there yet.” Bennet nodded toward independence before saying that the Fed “has often fallen short of its full employment mandate, which has harmed workers, especially those trying to make ends meet.” He also said that his appointees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors “will prioritize the employment mandate and consider every tool available to meet that mandate.”
Unfortunately, this is a niche issue many people don’t care about. Almost everyone does and should care about “the economy,” though, and the main government institution responsible for the state of “the economy” is the Fed.
What’s more, this is a particularly important issue precisely because it’s a little bit obscure. Any Democratic president’s Environmental Protection Agency director will come from the universe of “people the main environmental groups like and for whom moderate senators are willing to vote,” because that’s how politics works. But there are no strong interest groups that lobby around monetary policy.
A president who wants to install well-qualified people inclined to side with Sanders/Bennet/Booker will probably be able to do so, but a president who doesn’t care (like Obama) will probably end up appointing people whose views are all over the map (which is indeed what happened with Obama).
These aren’t the only two issues in America that matter, but they’re the main ones in which different nominees are likely to lead to different results. Almost everything that’s currently being debated, by contrast, is pointless.
Sanders wins elections
If you were designing an electability candidate in a lab, you would not come up with Bernie Sanders. You’d probably come up with someone like moderate Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who recently dropped out of the race after receiving essentially no public support or donations. Bullock turned out to be poorly suited to a modern primary process that is heavily weighted toward a candidate’s skill at attracting attention, but his proven track record of winning in a conservative state gave me confidence that he’d be an effective nominee, had that somehow happened.
Perhaps the diplomatic and popular Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar would be it. Minnesota is not Montana, but Klobuchar consistently overperforms baseline partisan fundamentals in a state that’s only modestly Democratic-leaning. Yet she’s trailing the top four in the Democratic field.
The reality is that four candidates — Sanders, Biden, Buttigieg, and Warren — have pulled away in a year in which Democrats say they are focused on electability. All of these candidates have obvious weaknesses. Of the crew, Sanders has arguably the best case to make for electability. His electoral track record is strong, whereas Warren’s is weak, Buttigieg’s is almost nonexistent, and Biden’s is mostly lacking in relevant information.
Winning races in Vermont is less impressive than winning them in Montana. And there are certainly plenty of left-wing Democrats who win while underperforming simply because they hold safe seats (Warren fits that mold), as well as plenty of moderate Democrats who overperform in tough races even while losing (former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill is a good example).
But Sanders appears to be a candidate who overperforms in easy races. He consistently runs ahead of Democratic presidential nominees in his home state, which suggests he knows how to overcome the “socialist” label, get people to vote for him despite some eccentricities, and even peel off some Republican votes.
Sanders first got to Congress by winning a tough three-way race in 1990, when Vermont was an only slightly blue-leaning state. He went on to consistently run ahead of Democratic presidential campaigns as a candidate for Vermont’s at-large seat in the US House of Representatives:
In 1992, Sanders got 58 percent to Bill Clinton’s 46 (it was a strong state for presidential candidate Ross Perot, but Bernie also faced a “third-party” challenge from a Democrat).
In 1996, Sanders got 55 percent to Clinton’s 53 percent.
In 2000, Sanders got 69 percent to Al Gore’s 51 percent.
In 2004, Sanders got 67 percent to John Kerry’s 59 percent.
Sanders got elected to the Senate in 2006, so he wasn’t on the ballot in 2008 or 2016. But in 2012, he won 71 percent to Obama’s 67 percent.
This is not definitive proof of Sanders’s skills — over the past 20 years, these haven’t really been vigorously contested races. Yet because those weren’t tough races, it would have been easy for Vermonters who had doubts about Sanders to cast meaningless protest votes for his opponents.
Sanders also appears to be able to make lemonade out of the whole “not officially a Democrat” thing by getting the votes of some non-Republicans who backed Perot in the 1990s and, more recently, other third-party candidates such as Jill Stein, Ralph Nader, and Gary Johnson. Indeed, one noteworthy thing about Sanders is that in head-to-head polling matchups against Trump, he tends to do better than you’d expect simply by looking at his favorable ratings.
Sanders’s popularity seems to be concentrated among certain blocks of persuadable voters (likely those considering a third-party vote), while a chunk of those who disapprove of Sanders are hardcore partisan Democrats who don’t like his lack of party spirit but will vote for him anyway.
At times Sanders embraces unpopular positions, like passing broad tax increases to finance Medicare-for-all or decriminalizing unauthorized entry into the United States. Compared with some hypothetical other Democrat, this could make him a weak choice. But he’s running against a field that also takes unpopular positions. It’s worth noting that even Biden has come out in favor of opening government insurance programs to the undocumented, allowing taxpayer funds to subsidize abortions, and ending the death penalty.
Bernie is a unifying choice
At the end of the day, Sanders’s record is not nearly as scary as many establishment Democrats fear. His “revolution” rhetoric doesn’t make sense to me, but he’s been an effective mayor and legislator for a long time, and he knows how to get things done — and how hard it is to get them done.
Some of his big ideas are not so hot on the merits, but it’s not worth worrying about them because the political revolution is so unrealistic. And on a couple of issues where the next president will probably have a fair amount of latitude, Sanders breaks from the pack in good ways. He’s perhaps not an ideal electability choice, but his track record on winning elections is solid and his early polling is pretty good. There’s no particular reason to think he’d be weaker than the other three top contenders, and at least some reason to think he’d be stronger.
A Sanders presidency should generate an emphasis on full employment, a tendency to shy away from launching wars, an executive branch that actually tries to enforce environmental protection and civil rights laws, and a situation in which bills that both progressives and moderates can agree on get to become law.
That’s a formula the vast majority of mainstream Democrats should be able to embrace.
Lots of moderate Democrats nonetheless find it annoying that Sanders and some of his followers are so committed to painting mainstream Democrats in such dark hues. And it is annoying! But annoying people won’t stop being annoying if he loses the nomination. If anything, they will be more annoying than ever as some refuse to get enthusiastic about the prospect of beating Trump. But if Sanders wins, partisan Democrats who just want to beat Trump will magically stop finding Bernie superfans annoying — the causes will be aligned, and the vast majority of people who want Trump out of the White House can collaborate in peace.
That leaves us where we started. The president really does have a good deal of latitude in conducting national security policy. If it’s very important to you that the US maintains a hawkish military posture in the Middle East, that’s a good reason to worry a lot about Sanders.
But most likely, a Sanders presidency will simply mean that young progressive activists are less sullen and dyspeptic about the incremental policy gains that would result from any Democrat occupying the presidency. It’ll also mean a foreign policy that errs a bit more on the side of restraint compared with what you’d get from anyone else in the field, as well as an approach to monetary policy that errs a bit more on the side of full employment. That’s a pretty good deal, and you don’t need to be a socialist to see it.
Read the rest of the Case For series: The case for Elizabeth Warren; the case for Joe Biden; the case for Pete Buttigieg; the case for Mike Bloomberg; the case for Amy Klobuchar. Vox does not endorse individual candidates.


vox--2020-01-07--Democrats want to check Trump on Iran — but Congress can only do so much

Congressional Democrats want to limit President Donald Trump ’ s ability to take military action against Iran , and they ’ re planning to force a vote to get their point across .
In the coming weeks , both the House and the Senate will consider resolutions reiterating that Trump can ’ t use existing congressional military force authorizations to justify war against Tehran , and requiring him to curb any military action toward the country if Congress hasn ’ t specifically approved it .
Sponsored by Sens .
Tim Kaine ( D-VA ) and Dick Durbin ( D-IL ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Slotkin ( D-MI ) in the House , these resolutions call on lawmakers to set up a check on the president ’ s ability to engage in further conflict with Iran .
( Because lawmakers have said the two measures are similar to one another , we ’ ll be referring to them relatively interchangeably for simplicity ’ s sake . )
Democrats ’ resolution marks their latest attempt to take a stand against both Trump ’ s recent use of an airstrike to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani without congressional consultation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasingly expansive interpretation of its war powers .
Although the Constitution has established Congress as the body with the ability to declare war , the legislative branch has ceded more and more of its authority to the president over the years .
And while Congress hasn ’ t had the political will to actually hold new votes on America ’ s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , Democrats and some Republicans have been increasingly eager to reassert themselves when it comes to military action elsewhere .
“ I think it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what the Constitution means , ” Yale University law professor Oona Hathaway tells Vox about the resolution .
It is ultimately , however , just a message .
Scheduling ( or forcing ) a vote on the resolution enables Democrats to make a point and put Republicans on the record , but this measure has little likelihood of being enacted .
Not only is it expected to face Republican pushback , it would also be subject to Trump ’ s veto even if Congress winds up passing it .
And like other measures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tried passing in recent years , it ’ s not an airtight method for stopping all military action against Iran .
Depending on differing legal interpretations on executive power , there are always exceptions , and it ’ s up to the administration to choose to respect it .
Democrats are using this resolution to make a point , though the president could potentially find a way around this measure , too In a world where Democrats ’ resolution passes Congress and is signed into law , it could tie Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president didn ’ t find some way of working around it .
Kaine ’ s version , which he introduced last week , outlines a couple of different tenets : It requires the president to withdraw any additional armed forces from “ hostilities ” toward Iran 30 days after its passage by Congress and it emphasizes that lawmakers have not authorized military force against Iran .
Specifically , the resolution notes that the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force that was used to send troops to Iraq does not apply to any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taking in Iran .
( That latter provision mirrors a similar bipartisan one that made it into the House ’ s annual defense spending bill last year , but the provision was removed in the final version negotiated with the Senate , much to the displeasure of progressives . )
Kaine ’ s measure also adds that the Trump administration itself has said that this authorization does not work , even though it ’ s been used quite broadly in the past to advance military efforts in Iraq and Syria .
The text @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet been released , though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a letter on Sunday that the House would vote on it this week .
The language in the two resolutions is set to closely resemble one another , and if Congress were to pass them it would establish a clear stance about how lawmakers on both sides of the aisle feel about the White House ’ s ability to unilaterally engage in armed conflict .
“ It ’ s a signal that Congress is willing to press for a renewed role in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There is an important caveat , however : Even if these resolutions become law , there ’ d be room for the president to maneuver around them , experts tell Vox .
“ The Justice Department would probably take the position that the resolution infringed on the president ’ s constitutional authority , and so the president might very well ignore it , ” the Brennan Center ’ s Liza Goitein says .
Ultimately , notes Brookings ’ s Scott Anderson , the interpretation of how constraining the resolution actually is is dependent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power and whether the president could justify the use of military force based on the authority granted by the Constitution .
“ The truth is that the effect of a measure that imposes these restraints would be to shove the executive branch into uncharted legal territory , ” Anderson says .
As Goitein explains , the DOJ via its Office of Legal Counsel “ believes that the president has inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to engage , without obtaining congressional authorization , in military actions that further important national interests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war.
’ ” Although there are past administrations that have said Congress could end these activities , Goitein argued that a Trump DOJ wasn ’ t likely to reach this conclusion .
Additionally , Hathaway notes that the Constitution offers an exception for the president to use military force without Congressional approval when the commander in chief is acting in response to a potential imminent attack .
In an op-ed for the Atlantic , Hathaway argues that this may be why one of the White House ’ s main lines of defense has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strike , which it has yet to provide evidence to back up : Without any more solid legal authority to cite , the Trump administration seems to have turned to the claim that it was acting in self-defense .
Though the administration has yet to provide any clear explanation for the legality of the strikes , it has offered various clues that the central justification is the president ’ s right to engage in self-defense on behalf of the United States .
The Department of Defense issued a short statement suggesting that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense “ aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.
” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later more forcefully claimed that the strike was aimed at disrupting an “ imminent attack.
” This claim—were it true—could solve the administration ’ s domestic and international legal problems at once .
Both the U.S. Constitution and the UN charter include an exception for self-defense .
Under Article II of the Constitution , the president may act to respond to imminent threats to the nation .
That said , if the president were to make a move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both the House and the Senate , it would be a fairly stunning rebuke of the legislative branch , one that wouldn ’ t be expected to be taken lightly .
A big question on both resolutions is how many Republicans end up voting alongside Democrats to support them .
The prospects for the resolutions are uncertain at the moment .
Given the Democratic majority in the House , it ’ s expected to pass there , while its chances are a bit slimmer in the Republican-controlled Senate .
That said , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is considered “ privileged , ” which means lawmakers will have to vote on it .
This dynamic suggests that all senators will have to go on the record about whether they support Trump continuing to increase military action in Iran , the likelihood of which has become a lot less theoretical since the last time they voted on this issue last summer .
At that time , four Republican Senators — Rand Paul ( R-KY ) , Mike Lee ( R-UT ) , Susan Collins ( R-ME ) , and Jerry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump to vote in favor of an amendment that would have cut off federal funding of military action against Iran that was taken without Congressional approval .
If Democrats were able to sway at least four Republicans to vote with them this time around , the resolution would be able to pass the upper chamber with a simple majority .
Again , 51 senators is far from a veto-proof majority , but the vote would send a stinging signal to Trump and will force Republicans to show where they stand on further military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could see major pushback from the public and constituents in battleground states .
According to a recent HuffPost/YouGov poll , 32 percent of independent voters disapprove of how Trump has handled foreign policy .
“ If nothing else , if it doesn ’ t have the force of law to stop the president , it does provide an opportunity to have a bunch of Republicans forced to vote on the president ’ s decision and to rally political pressure against it , ” Anderson told Vox .
Kaine has said as much himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prompt conversation about the role Congress plays when it comes to this type of intervention .
“ We owe it to our service members to have a debate and vote about whether or not it ’ s in our national interest to engage in another unnecessary war in the Middle East , ” he said in a statement .
While its passage may be symbolic , the questions it raises are likely to endure far beyond these votes .

Congressional Democrats want to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to take military action against Iran, and they’re planning to force a vote to get their point across.
In the coming weeks, both the House and the Senate will consider resolutions reiterating that Trump can’t use existing congressional military force authorizations to justify war against Tehran, and requiring him to curb any military action toward the country if Congress hasn’t specifically approved it.
Sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) in the upper chamber and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in the House, these resolutions call on lawmakers to set up a check on the president’s ability to engage in further conflict with Iran. (Because lawmakers have said the two measures are similar to one another, we’ll be referring to them relatively interchangeably for simplicity’s sake.)
Democrats’ resolution marks their latest attempt to take a stand against both Trump’s recent use of an airstrike to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani without congressional consultation, and the executive branch’s increasingly expansive interpretation of its war powers. Although the Constitution has established Congress as the body with the ability to declare war, the legislative branch has ceded more and more of its authority to the president over the years.
And while Congress hasn’t had the political will to actually hold new votes on America’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Democrats and some Republicans have been increasingly eager to reassert themselves when it comes to military action elsewhere.
“I think it’s a pretty important statement from Congress about what the Constitution means,” Yale University law professor Oona Hathaway tells Vox about the resolution.
It is ultimately, however, just a message. Scheduling (or forcing) a vote on the resolution enables Democrats to make a point and put Republicans on the record, but this measure has little likelihood of being enacted. Not only is it expected to face Republican pushback, it would also be subject to Trump’s veto even if Congress winds up passing it.
And like other measures Democrats and bipartisan groups of lawmakers have tried passing in recent years, it’s not an airtight method for stopping all military action against Iran. Depending on differing legal interpretations on executive power, there are always exceptions, and it’s up to the administration to choose to respect it.
Democrats are using this resolution to make a point, though the president could potentially find a way around this measure, too
In a world where Democrats’ resolution passes Congress and is signed into law, it could tie Trump’s hands on Iran — as long the president didn’t find some way of working around it.
Kaine’s version, which he introduced last week, outlines a couple of different tenets: It requires the president to withdraw any additional armed forces from “hostilities” toward Iran 30 days after its passage by Congress and it emphasizes that lawmakers have not authorized military force against Iran.
Specifically, the resolution notes that the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force that was used to send troops to Iraq does not apply to any action the administration may be interested in taking in Iran. (That latter provision mirrors a similar bipartisan one that made it into the House’s annual defense spending bill last year, but the provision was removed in the final version negotiated with the Senate, much to the displeasure of progressives.)
Kaine’s measure also adds that the Trump administration itself has said that this authorization does not work, even though it’s been used quite broadly in the past to advance military efforts in Iraq and Syria.
The text of Slotkin’s resolution has not yet been released, though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a letter on Sunday that the House would vote on it this week.
The language in the two resolutions is set to closely resemble one another, and if Congress were to pass them it would establish a clear stance about how lawmakers on both sides of the aisle feel about the White House’s ability to unilaterally engage in armed conflict. “It’s a signal that Congress is willing to press for a renewed role in war powers,” says Hathaway.
There is an important caveat, however: Even if these resolutions become law, there’d be room for the president to maneuver around them, experts tell Vox.
“The Justice Department would probably take the position that the resolution infringed on the president’s constitutional authority, and so the president might very well ignore it,” the Brennan Center’s Liza Goitein says.
Ultimately, notes Brookings’s Scott Anderson, the interpretation of how constraining the resolution actually is is dependent on legal experts’ views about executive power and whether the president could justify the use of military force based on the authority granted by the Constitution.
“The truth is that the effect of a measure that imposes these restraints would be to shove the executive branch into uncharted legal territory,” Anderson says.
As Goitein explains, the DOJ via its Office of Legal Counsel “believes that the president has inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to engage, without obtaining congressional authorization, in military actions that further important national interests and that fall short of total ‘war.’” Although there are past administrations that have said Congress could end these activities, Goitein argued that a Trump DOJ wasn’t likely to reach this conclusion.
Additionally, Hathaway notes that the Constitution offers an exception for the president to use military force without Congressional approval when the commander in chief is acting in response to a potential imminent attack. In an op-ed for the Atlantic, Hathaway argues that this may be why one of the White House’s main lines of defense has relied on the possibility of an imminent strike, which it has yet to provide evidence to back up:
Without any more solid legal authority to cite, the Trump administration seems to have turned to the claim that it was acting in self-defense. Though the administration has yet to provide any clear explanation for the legality of the strikes, it has offered various clues that the central justification is the president’s right to engage in self-defense on behalf of the United States. The Department of Defense issued a short statement suggesting that the attack was justified as an act of defense “aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later more forcefully claimed that the strike was aimed at disrupting an “imminent attack.” This claim—were it true—could solve the administration’s domestic and international legal problems at once. Both the U.S. Constitution and the UN charter include an exception for self-defense. Under Article II of the Constitution, the president may act to respond to imminent threats to the nation.
That said, if the president were to make a move in direct opposition of congressional majorities in both the House and the Senate, it would be a fairly stunning rebuke of the legislative branch, one that wouldn’t be expected to be taken lightly. A big question on both resolutions is how many Republicans end up voting alongside Democrats to support them.
These resolutions put pressure on Republicans
The prospects for the resolutions are uncertain at the moment. Given the Democratic majority in the House, it’s expected to pass there, while its chances are a bit slimmer in the Republican-controlled Senate. That said, because this is a war powers resolution, it is considered “privileged,” which means lawmakers will have to vote on it.
This dynamic suggests that all senators will have to go on the record about whether they support Trump continuing to increase military action in Iran, the likelihood of which has become a lot less theoretical since the last time they voted on this issue last summer. At that time, four Republican Senators — Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) — broke with Trump to vote in favor of an amendment that would have cut off federal funding of military action against Iran that was taken without Congressional approval.
If Democrats were able to sway at least four Republicans to vote with them this time around, the resolution would be able to pass the upper chamber with a simple majority. Again, 51 senators is far from a veto-proof majority, but the vote would send a stinging signal to Trump and will force Republicans to show where they stand on further military engagement with Iran, a move that could see major pushback from the public and constituents in battleground states. According to a recent HuffPost/YouGov poll, 32 percent of independent voters disapprove of how Trump has handled foreign policy.
“If nothing else, if it doesn’t have the force of law to stop the president, it does provide an opportunity to have a bunch of Republicans forced to vote on the president’s decision and to rally political pressure against it,” Anderson told Vox.
Kaine has said as much himself, noting that this resolution is intended to prompt conversation about the role Congress plays when it comes to this type of intervention. “We owe it to our service members to have a debate and vote about whether or not it’s in our national interest to engage in another unnecessary war in the Middle East,” he said in a statement.
While its passage may be symbolic, the questions it raises are likely to endure far beyond these votes.


vox--2020-01-07--There’s a new, mysterious pneumonia outbreak in China

There ’ s a mysterious outbreak in China causing dozens of people to fall sick with pneumonia , a serious respiratory infection that ’ s commonly triggered by the flu virus .
What sets this pneumonia outbreak apart : The pneumonia is caused by a yet-to-be-identified pathogen .
And the outbreak has been linked to a food market , where vendors peddle seafood and animals , such as birds and rabbits .
So far , the infection doesn ’ t appear to be spreading from person to person .
This could mean a new disease has made the leap across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to the World Health Organization ’ s first update on the outbreak , released Sunday .
The details are reminiscent of the SARS scare in the early 2000s .
SARS , a deadly respiratory virus , was first discovered in China in 2003 , when it jumped from civet cats to humans .
It then spread to two dozen countries and eventually killed 774 people and infected more than 8,000 .
The new outbreak was first identified on December 31 in Wuhan , a mainland city of 19 million and the capital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s most populous provinces , according to a January 5 update from Wuhan ’ s municipal health commission .
To date , there are 59 cases in the city .
Seven of the patients are seriously ill , and no one has died .
Separately , Hong Kong has reported eight possible cases .
Pneumonia , an infection in the lungs , can be caused by a variety of organisms — bacteria , fungi , viruses , even parasites .
The lungs ’ air sacs become inflamed , and fill up with fluid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with pneumonia can experience a wide range of symptoms , from the very mild to the deadly , including cough , fever , fatigue , chills , loss of appetite , headache , and shortness of breath .
In the case of the Wuhan outbreak , the main symptoms reported are fever followed by difficulty breathing , the WHO said .
In chest X-rays , patients appear to have lesions in both lungs .
Though health officials in China have ruled out seasonal flu , bird flu , SARS , and MERS , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ routine respiratory virus — not a novel pathogen — is triggering these pneumonia cases , said Marion Koopmans , who studies emerging infectious diseases as director of the department of virology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam .
Viruses like seasonal flu can fade from the body before pneumonia symptoms set in , Koopmans explained , so that may be why it ’ s gone undetected .
It ’ s also possible that a bacterium in the market has been sickening people , like avian chlamydiosis from birds , or leptospirosis spraying from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It takes time to really fish out what is going on , ” she said .
In the SARS outbreak of 2003 , China was criticized for withholding information about the outbreak for too long .
“ Things were going on for a couple of months before it became clear [ outside of China ] , ” Koopmans said .
By contrast , with the Wuhan outbreak , China ’ s publicly reporting a cluster of patients still under investigation .
It ’ s also reassuring that the country now has set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Koopmans added .
Still , Koopmans would like more information about exactly how diagnostic tests are being performed , and diseases ruled out .
“ We have to give them time to investigate but it would be good if there were some more pieces of information.
” Wuhan hasn ’ t released details about the ages of the sick just yet , but said the earliest symptoms appeared December 12 .
That means the outbreak — at least based on what ’ s known right now — started relatively recently .
Chinese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patients — without specifying how many — worked at South China Seafood Wholesale Market , where fish and wild animals are sold .
The WHO says it ’ s requested more data from China ’ s health authorities .
So far , the agency isn ’ t recommending any travel or trade restrictions on China , or specific precautions for travelers .
“ In case of symptoms suggestive of respiratory illness either during or after travel , travellers are encouraged to seek medical attention and share travel history with their healthcare provider , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a level one travel advisory , the lowest level alert , advising travelers to Wuhan to “ avoid living or dead animals , animal markets , and contact with sick people.
” While health officials in China try to figure out what ’ s causing the disease , they ’ re also working to prevent further spread .
All the known patients are in isolation , and 163 contacts of the sick in Wuhan are being followed to see if they come down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shut down and decontaminated the seafood market where some of the patients worked .
Hong Kong has begun temperature screening inbound train passengers from Wuhan .
Countries around China , including Taiwan and Singapore , have started to take precautions , too , implementing temperature screening at airports .
Already , there ’ s a potential case in Singapore .
The Ministry of Health said a 3-year-old girl with pneumonia , who had a history of travel to Wuhan , is in isolation .
It ’ s possible her sickness will be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s also possible it won ’ t be , and that the mystery virus is simply seasonal flu .
It ’ s still early days .

There’s a mysterious outbreak in China causing dozens of people to fall sick with pneumonia, a serious respiratory infection that’s commonly triggered by the flu virus.
What sets this pneumonia outbreak apart: The pneumonia is caused by a yet-to-be-identified pathogen. And the outbreak has been linked to a food market, where vendors peddle seafood and animals, such as birds and rabbits.
So far, the infection doesn’t appear to be spreading from person to person. This could mean a new disease has made the leap across species, from animals to humans, according to the World Health Organization’s first update on the outbreak, released Sunday. The details are reminiscent of the SARS scare in the early 2000s. SARS, a deadly respiratory virus, was first discovered in China in 2003, when it jumped from civet cats to humans. It then spread to two dozen countries and eventually killed 774 people and infected more than 8,000.
The new outbreak was first identified on December 30 in Wuhan, a mainland city of 19 million and the capital of Hubei, one of China’s most populous provinces, according to a January 5 update from Wuhan’s municipal health commission. To date, there are 59 cases in the city. Seven of the patients are seriously ill, and no one has died. Separately, Hong Kong has reported eight possible cases.
Pneumonia, an infection in the lungs, can be caused by a variety of organisms — bacteria, fungi, viruses, even parasites. The lungs’ air sacs become inflamed, and fill up with fluid or pus instead of air. People with pneumonia can experience a wide range of symptoms, from the very mild to the deadly, including cough, fever, fatigue, chills, loss of appetite, headache, and shortness of breath.
In the case of the Wuhan outbreak, the main symptoms reported are fever followed by difficulty breathing, the WHO said. In chest X-rays, patients appear to have lesions in both lungs.
Though health officials in China have ruled out seasonal flu, bird flu, SARS, and MERS, it’s still possible that a routine respiratory virus — not a novel pathogen — is triggering these pneumonia cases, said Marion Koopmans, who studies emerging infectious diseases as director of the department of virology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam.
Viruses like seasonal flu can fade from the body before pneumonia symptoms set in, Koopmans explained, so that may be why it’s gone undetected. It’s also possible that a bacterium in the market has been sickening people, like avian chlamydiosis from birds, or leptospirosis spraying from the market’s cooling systems. “It takes time to really fish out what is going on,” she said.
The good news: China is sharing information — fast
In the SARS outbreak of 2003, China was criticized for withholding information about the outbreak for too long. “Things were going on for a couple of months before it became clear [outside of China],” Koopmans said. By contrast, with the Wuhan outbreak, China’s publicly reporting a cluster of patients still under investigation. It’s also reassuring that the country now has set up a state-of-the-art system for investigating outbreaks, Koopmans added.
Still, Koopmans would like more information about exactly how diagnostic tests are being performed, and diseases ruled out. “We have to give them time to investigate but it would be good if there were some more pieces of information.”
Wuhan hasn’t released details about the ages of the sick just yet, but said the earliest symptoms appeared December 12. That means the outbreak — at least based on what’s known right now — started relatively recently. Chinese health officials also said some of the patients — without specifying how many — worked at South China Seafood Wholesale Market, where fish and wild animals are sold.
The WHO says it’s requested more data from China’s health authorities. So far, the agency isn’t recommending any travel or trade restrictions on China, or specific precautions for travelers. “In case of symptoms suggestive of respiratory illness either during or after travel, travellers are encouraged to seek medical attention and share travel history with their healthcare provider,” the WHO said in its statement.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a level one travel advisory, the lowest level alert, advising travelers to Wuhan to “avoid living or dead animals, animal markets, and contact with sick people.”
While health officials in China try to figure out what’s causing the disease, they’re also working to prevent further spread. All the known patients are in isolation, and 163 contacts of the sick in Wuhan are being followed to see if they come down with symptoms. The government has already shut down and decontaminated the seafood market where some of the patients worked.
Hong Kong has begun temperature screening inbound train passengers from Wuhan. Countries around China, including Taiwan and Singapore, have started to take precautions, too, implementing temperature screening at airports. Already, there’s a potential case in Singapore. The Ministry of Health said a 3-year-old girl with pneumonia, who had a history of travel to Wuhan, is in isolation. It’s possible her sickness will be a case in the mystery outbreak; it’s also possible it won’t be, and that the mystery virus is simply seasonal flu. It’s still early days.


vox--2020-01-07--Iran attacks a US airbase in Iraq: What we know so far

Iran has just fired multiple missiles at US military targets in Iraq , two US officials told me , likely in retaliation for President Donald Trump ’ s decision last week to kill Qassem Soleimani , the leader of Iran ’ s most elite military and intelligence force .
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps , a part of Iran ’ s military in which Suleimani was a leading figure , claimed responsibility for the attack .
For days , Iranian officials signaled that they would strike US military targets in response to Soleimani ’ s killing .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White House has already put out a statement about the attack saying that Trump “ is monitoring the situation.
” Two US officials — one in the White House and one in the Pentagon — told me that missiles were launched at Al Asad airbase .
It ’ s important to note that Iran doesn ’ t have missiles that can reach the US mainland from Iran , and it doesn ’ t even have a nuclear weapon .
It ’ s why Iran uses proxies and weapons at its disposal mainly to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Middle East .
Details of this attack are still developing , though , but here ’ s what we do and don ’ t know so far .
We will continue updating this story as we learn more .
What we know • Over six rockets have reportedly hit the Al Asad airbase located west of Baghdad where US and Iraqi troops reside .
There are also reports of rockets landing on US targets in Erbil in Iraq ’ s north .
So far there are no confirmed reports of anyone dead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What we don ’ t know • The exact reason for this attack • If anyone has been injured or killed • What the US response will be to the attack

Iran fired missiles at two US military targets in Iraq Tuesday night in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s decision last week to kill Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite military and intelligence force.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps, a part of Iran’s military in which Soleimani was a leading figure, claimed responsibility for the attack, and top-level Iranian officials boasted about the strikes. For days, Iranian leaders signaled that they would strike US military targets in response to Soleimani’s killing, and it certainly seems like this was that strike. It’s unclear if there are more to come in the next few days or weeks.
A spokesperson for US Central Command told me that Iran fired 15 missiles: Ten struck al-Asad airbase west of Baghdad, Iraq; one struck Erbil in northern Iraq; and four failed. David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times reports that the US was able to track the launches with radar, giving personnel time to take cover. Unnamed Iraqi military officials told the New York Times that Iran launched 22 missiles.
A White House official told me Tuesday night that there were no American casualties, although the Pentagon has yet to officially say whether or not Americans were killed. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi released a statement on Wednesday saying no Iraqis were killed.
CNN reports that some Trump administration officials believe Iran purposefully missed areas with Americans, but there is no official confirmation on that yet.
Trump seems unbothered by what happened, tweeting hours after the attack that “All is well!” He plans to make a statement sometime on Wednesday morning.
All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2020
It’s important to note that Iran doesn’t have missiles that can reach the US mainland from Iran, nor does it have a nuclear weapon. It’s why Iran uses proxies and weapons at its disposal mainly to strike US targets and American allies in the Middle East.
There’s a chance for de-escalation, as Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in a tweeted statement that “Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defense.” Concluded is an important word, signaling that Iran may be done.
Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched.
We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression. — Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 8, 2020
However, Iran has threatened to attack inside the US if America responds specifically to this assault — which means an Iranian strike inside the US isn’t imminent. Iran has also vowed to attack the cities of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Haifa in Israel if Iranian soil is bombed.
There’s more: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his nation’s final act will be to get all US forces out of the region. It’s unclear if that means using military force to compel US troops to leave or work with political allies, especially in Baghdad, to have the US military leave.
And Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted Wednesday morning that Iran may take further action.
They were slapped last night, but such military actions are not enough. #AlAssadBase — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 8, 2020
Planet Labs has released an image of Al-Asad airbase showing extensive damage to some of the installation’s buildings.
Several locations of Ain al-Asad airbase were hit by the IRGC ballistic missiles, this @planetlabs satellite image captured this morning shows. Damage assessment by @ArmsControlWonk and @DaveSchmerler. Google Maps reference of area: https://t.co/PYa7owsYHo. pic.twitter.com/cpzvTgH6U0 — Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) January 8, 2020
The story is still developing, but here’s what we do and don’t know so far. We will continue to update this article as we learn more.
What we know
A US Central Command spokesperson told me that Iran fired 15 missiles, four of which failed to hit their target. Ten struck al-Asad airbase and one struck Erbil. Iraqi officials say Iran launched 22 missiles.
A White House official told me there are no American casualties, and Iraq’s prime minister said no Iraqis died. The Pentagon has yet to confirm if there were any US deaths.
Iran has threatened to attack inside the US if America retaliates to this specific assault. Iran has also vowed to attack the cities of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Haifa in Israel if Iranian soil is bombed.
The FAA has barred US airlines from flying over Iraq and Iran.
What we don’t know