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war powers resolution
Warning of Another 'Disaster' Like Iran, Senators Introduce War Powers Resolution on Cuba
"When will President Trump understand that Americans want lower prices, not more unnecessary wars?"
Mar 13, 2026
As President Donald Trump continued to face global criticism for his and Israel's joint assault on Iran, a trio of US Senate Democrats on Friday introduced a war powers resolution intended to prevent him from also attacking Cuba without congressional authorization amid talks with the island's government.
Despite the US Constitution empowering Congress to declare war, Trump this year has not only launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran but also killed dozens of Venezuelans and Cubans in a military invasion to abduct President Nicolás Maduro, sent troops to Ecuador for a joint campaign to combat "narco-terrorism," and blown up over 150 people allegedly trafficking drugs in Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean in bombings that critics have called "war crimes, murder, or both."
"When will President Trump understand that Americans want lower prices, not more unnecessary wars?" asked Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who is spearheading the Cuba measure with Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). A member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, Kaine also led the war powers resolution on Iran that Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and nearly all Republicans blocked last week.
Despite constitutional limits, Trump "operates with the belief that the US military is a palace guard, ordering military action in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and Iran without Congress' authorization or any explanation for his actions to the American people," said Kaine. "We shouldn't risk our sons and daughters' lives at the whims of any one person."
The Biden administration intended to cut Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, but Trump reversed course after returning to office last year and revived a list of "restricted entities" established during his first term. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and longtime supporter of regime change on the island, also expanded a visa policy targeting Cuba's international medical missions.
Since Trump's operation to abduct Maduro and seize control of his country's nationalized oil industry—which led to protests in Venezuela and Cuba—Trump has also ramped up the United States' decades-long economic blockade against the island, cutting off shipments of Venezuelan oil, with dire consequences for the Cuban people.
As Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, explained last month: "Given the dependence of health, food, and water systems on imported fossil fuels, the current oil scarcity has put the availability of essential services at risk nationwide. Intensive care units and emergency rooms are compromised, as are the production, delivery, and storage of vaccines, blood products, and other temperature-sensitive medications."
Meanwhile, Trump and his allies have signaled they're considering an attack on the island. Trump told reporters late last month that "the Cuban government is talking with us," but also said that "maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba."
Just days later, after Trump ditched nuclear negotiations with Iran and teamed up with Israel to bomb the Middle Eastern country, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) declared during a Fox News interview: "Cuba's next. They're gonna fall."
Noting the rising death toll for US service members involved in the war on Iran, Schiff said Friday that "the American people have spoken loud and clear that they do not want any more costly wars of choice that skyrocket prices at home."
"The president's saber-rattling toward Cuba makes clear where his sights are next," he continued. "Congress must make its voice heard, or we risk involvement in another risky war of choice and losing our constitutionally granted authorities forever."
Gallego also highlighted how Trump's misadventures abroad are impacting US citizens, as Americans contend with surging gasoline prices on top of high costs for groceries, housing, and health insurance, plus massive cuts to social safety net programs that congressional Republicans and the president imposed with their budget package last year to give more tax cuts to the rich.
"As if the disaster of the Iran War and the resulting spike in oil prices weren't enough, Trump is now threatening to intervene in Cuba as well," said Gallego, a former Marine who served in the Iraq War. "He ran on America First, but now it's clear he's become a puppet of the war hawks in his party. The American people want nothing to do with nation building—they want lower prices, good healthcare, and affordable homes, not a new war to satisfy neoconservatives in South Florida."
The senators announced their resolution as Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel publicly confirmed that his government recently held "sensitive" talks with the Trump administration "to determine the willingness of both parties to take concrete actions for the benefit of the people of both countries. And in addition, to identify areas of cooperation to confront threats and guarantee the security and peace of both nations, as well as in the region."
According to The Associated Press:
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top aides met late last month in the Caribbean with the grandson of retired Cuban leader Raul Castro, two US officials said Friday shortly after Díaz-Canel spoke.
The US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said that Rubio had met secretly with Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro on the sidelines of a Caribbean Community leaders meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis.
Rubio's meeting coincided with a shootout involving men on a Florida speedboat and Cuban forces that left five suspects dead and five others detained in Cuba, facing terrorism charges. The AP noted that when asked about that case on Friday, Díaz-Canel "said that FBI officials would visit Cuba soon as both countries continue to share information on the incident."
During his remarks to reporters, Díaz-Canel also noted the "tremendous" impact of the oil blockade, which has affected communications, education, healthcare, and transportation.
Sharing a clip of the Cuban leader's comments on social media, Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler said: "I am asking you to imagine how a civilian population of over 10 million people can survive without any access to imported energy for three whole months. In Cuba, the United States is committing the most barbaric war crimes known to man—and Washington simply shrugs it off."
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The War That Killed My Father Is Starting Again in Iran
The parallels between Vietnam and the Iran conflict aren’t just echoes—they’re a playbook. And every institution meant to stop it from repeating has failed.
Mar 06, 2026
The Army got 20 years of my father’s life including two tours in Vietnam. In return, it gave him nightmares he never named and cancers connected to his service. He wouldn’t talk about what happened over there—not even when I asked.
He came home and spent decades fighting a war nobody could see. The PTSD was severe and completely untreated. In those years, nobody used the term. They just called men like my father “difficult” or “distant.” My mother raised five daughters alongside him, absorbing the weight of his trauma so we all carried pieces of it with us.
He finally found some peace later in life. Then a prostate cancer diagnosis—a disease appearing on the US Department of Veteran Affair’s official list of conditions presumed to be caused by Agent Orange. He won the fight. Then leukemia reared its ugly head, and, at 66, the war finally finished what it started decades earlier.
My mother and my four sisters endured his suffering as our own for his entire life while the country sending him to war simply moved on.
The question before this country is whether it is willing to do this again—to commit another generation to a war with no defined objectives, no exit strategy, and no congressional authorization.
I have spent 25 years as an educator, teaching young people to recognize patterns and think critically about the world around them. I am watching a pattern unfold right now, and I am compelled to speak about it.
On February 28, the United States and Israel launched a massive military campaign against Iran—Operation Epic Fury. In six days, the conflict has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran—including over 150 schoolgirls killed in a single strike on an elementary school—and six American service members. The defense Secretary declared “America is winning” and said the operation was in its early days, promising more to come.
The scale is staggering. Iran has launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones in retaliation. Israeli and American strikes have hit residential neighborhoods, hospitals, and a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tehran. The World Health Organization has documented 13 attacks on Iranian health infrastructure. Iran’s internet has been blacked out for over 100 hours, cutting 88 million people off from the outside world.
And the conflict is metastasizing daily. A US submarine sank an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka—the first torpedo fired at an enemy vessel since World War II. NATO forces shot down an Iranian missile heading toward Turkey—the first time in this conflict a missile has threatened a NATO member. Drones struck Azerbaijan. Qatar is evacuating residents near the US Embassy. An Iranian drone strike shut down Qatar’s liquefied natural gas exports, triggering a potential energy crisis from India to Italy. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed.
The same week, American forces began combat operations in Ecuador—the latest step in a hemisphere-wide military expansion including the capture of Venezuela’s president and strikes on alleged drug boats killing over 150 people.
None of it was authorized by Congress.
The parallels to Vietnam are not abstract. They are specific and structural.
Vietnam began with the Gulf of Tonkin incident—an alleged attack later investigation revealed never happened, built on intelligence deliberately distorted. The justification for the Iran campaign has followed a strikingly similar pattern. The administration pointed to nuclear weapons and ballistic missile threats, but US intelligence assessments contradicted those claims, projecting Iran could not develop such capabilities before 2035. The United Nation’s nuclear watchdog confirmed Iran was not days or weeks from having atomic weapons. Within days, the official rationale cycled through nuclear concerns, protest crackdowns, “imminent threats,” and finally open regime change.
Vietnam escalated through incremental steps, each framed as a necessary response to the last. What began with 900 military advisers in 1960 had swelled to more than 500,000 ground troops by 1968. The Iran trajectory mirrors this arc—economic sanctions gave way to Houthi strikes, then a targeted air campaign in 2025, and now a war spanning multiple continents and drawing in NATO for the first time. Senior officials have left the door open to ground forces.
Vietnam had the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution—passed with only two dissenting votes—handing the president unchecked authority. Iran has something arguably worse: no authorization at all. The War Powers Resolution, the very law Congress created in 1973 because of Vietnam, was voted down in the Senate on March 4 by a margin of 47 to 53. The eighth time Congress has refused to assert its constitutional war authority since June. The tool exists. The will to use it does not.
And perhaps the most damning parallel: Just 72 hours before the strikes began, Iran’s top diplomat declared a deal to avert war was within grasp. Oman’s foreign minister confirmed Iran had agreed to never stockpile enriched uranium and accept full international verification. Talks were still happening in Geneva when the first missiles hit. Diplomacy didn’t fail. It was abandoned.
There is one more parallel Americans must reckon with. Iran is not a country poised to collapse under bombardment and accept a government designed in Washington. It is a nation of 88 million people with a civilization stretching back millennia. It survived the Mongol Empire, the British Empire, a US-backed coup in 1953, and an eight-year war with Iraq in which the world armed its enemy. Modern history does not contain a single instance of Western military force successfully transforming a Middle Eastern nation into a stable democracy. Iraq took 20 years and failed. Afghanistan took 20 years and failed. Libya collapsed into chaos. What reason is there to believe Iran will be different?
My father was sent to fight a war lasting two decades, killing 58,000 Americans and over 2 million Vietnamese, achieving nothing it promised. The dying didn’t stop when the war ended—veterans kept falling for decades to Agent Orange cancers and untreated trauma. Their families carried the cost in silence. My family carried it in silence.
The question before this country is whether it is willing to do this again—to commit another generation to a war with no defined objectives, no exit strategy, and no congressional authorization. The institutions supposed to prevent this—Congress, the War Powers Resolution, the constitutional separation of powers—have each failed in turn.
My father’s stories are gone. He took them with him. But the political machinery sending him to Vietnam is running again, and it is not too late to shut it down. It requires only the people who swore to uphold the Constitution actually doing so—and the rest of us demanding it.
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'We Have Only Just Begun,' Hegseth Says as 4 House Dems Join GOP to Back Trump War on Iran
"This disgraceful vote does not change Congress' legal duty, and it certainly does not silence the millions of Americans who oppose another illegal war," said an ACLU director.
Mar 05, 2026
As US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared Thursday that "the amount of firepower over Iran and over Tehran is about to surge dramatically," four Democrats in the House of Representatives voted with nearly all Republicans to reject a bipartisan war powers resolution that would have halted President Donald Trump and Israel's assault on the Middle East country.
Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), Greg Landsman (Ohio), and Juan Vargas (Calif.) stood with the GOP for the 212-219 vote against H.Con.Res.38, which was led by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). The only other Republican to support the resolution was Rep. Warren Davidson (Ohio)—though GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales (Texas), who is facing an unrelated scandal, did not participate.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the think tank Center for International Policy, highlighted that given Massie and Davidson's votes, "if those four Democrats had stuck with their caucus and their voters, it would have passed."
"Everyone who opposed the resolution owns this war—along with the casualties, rising gas prices, and regional chaos that comes with it."
The House vote came just a day after Democratic US Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) and all of the chamber's Republicans but Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) rejected S.J.Res.104, a similar resolution sponsored by Paul and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). As with the Wednesday vote, a range of critics called out Congress for enabling Trump's illegal and already seemingly endless war.
"This is a shameful abdication of Congress' constitutional authority to take the country to war," said Defending Rights & Dissent, noting the rising death toll. "US and Israeli strikes have hit elementary schools, hospitals, and the capital city of Tehran, home to 10 million. Six US service members have died. Trump is carrying out yet another regime change war of choice, and the American people have been overwhelmingly clear that they don't support it."
"This was Congress' best chance to stop further killings, to stop an all-out regional war with no end in sight, and to uphold the constitutional principle that prevents presidents from going rogue," the group continued. "We are deeply disappointed in both chambers' failure to stand up to this dangerous insanity."
Christopher Anders, director of the ACLU's democracy and technology division, stressed in a statement that "this failed war powers vote is nothing short of cowardly, but Congress can't dodge the Constitution forever."
"By refusing to rein in President Trump's unauthorized war with Iran, Congress has allowed President Trump to make a mockery of the Constitution and is trying to duck responsibility for putting service members and civilians in great danger," Anders added. "But, this disgraceful vote does not change Congress' legal duty, and it certainly does not silence the millions of Americans who oppose another illegal war. We will hold President Trump accountable for this abuse of power."
In the lead-up to Thursday's vote, one unnamed "senior progressive House Democrat" told Axios that the groups including Justice Democrats, MoveOn, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Our Revolution "will primary anyone" who votes no.
After the vote, Justice Democrats shared the congressional office numbers of the four Democrats, and said to "call these spineless Dems who support Trump's new forever war with Iran and tell them to go to war themselves if they want it so bad."
Another progressive group, a youth-led climate organization Sunrise Movement, also took aim at the House Democrats who voted with the GOP, declaring on social media: "Absolutely ridiculous. Call them out. Vote them out."
Council on American-Islamic Relations government affairs director Robert S. McCaw commended all lawmakers "who voted to uphold Congress' constitutional duty and demand an end to unauthorized hostilities with Iran," particularly Massie and Davidson for their "courage to break with their party and stand on principle."
It is also "deeply disappointing" that some Democrats "joined Republicans to defeat this effort and enable an unconstitutional war," he said, warning that "their votes helped give the administration a green light to continue a dangerous escalation that threatens American lives and regional stability."
Earlier this week, Cuellar, Golden, and Landsman joined Democratic Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), and Jimmy Panetta (Calif.) to introduce a competing war powers resolution that would let Trump wage war on Iran for a month. Noting that proposal, McCaw argued that "Americans did not elect Congress to issue a '30 days of carnage hall pass' for an unauthorized war. If a war is unconstitutional today, it should not be allowed to continue for another month."
“The Constitution is clear: Congress, not the president, has the authority to decide when this nation goes to war," he added. "The American people must continue pressing their elected representatives to reclaim that authority and stop another disastrous war in the Middle East before it spirals further out of control."
As of Thursday, the Iranian government put the death toll at 1,230, though US and Israeli attacks continue, and Hegseth said that "we have only just begun to fight and fight decisively... If you think you've seen something, just wait. The amount of combat power that's still flowing, that's still coming, that we'll be able to project over Iran is a multiples of what it currently is right now."
On top of the lives lost, recent reporting suggests that Trump's war on Iran could be costing US taxpayers $1 billion per day. Calling the House vote "profoundly disappointing," Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian said that "everyone who opposed the resolution owns this war—along with the casualties, rising gas prices, and regional chaos that comes with it."
"Congress needs to stop listening to warmongering elites," Kharrazian added, "and start listening to the American people who are sick and tired of being dragged into forever wars."
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