Press Release: Statement Calling for Congress to Stop Trump from Pursuing War with Iran

For Immediate Release: January 7, 2020
Contact: Mark Weisbrot, Board of Directors, 202-746-7264, media@epsusa.org

Congress must stop President Trump from leading the United States into another disastrous war in the Middle East in violation of the Constitution, Economists for Peace and Security said today. For two decades, endless U.S. wars in the Middle East have caused spectacular human suffering while diverting trillions of U.S. tax dollars from necessary expenditures for productive investment and human needs.

“The war with Iraq has cost the United States nearly $6 trillion,” said Linda Bilmes, co-chair of Economists for Peace and Security. “A war with Iran would likely be even more costly. Already in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly 7,000 Americans have been killed and 600,000 US troops injured.”

Press reports indicate that the House will vote on an Iran war powers resolution to direct the President to remove U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities with Iran as early as Wednesday. The Senate is expected soon thereafter.

Economists for Peace and Security condemns the Trump Administration’s assassination of a senior Iranian government official in Iraq. The group, which counts nine Nobel Laureates among its Board of Trustees, noted that “it is a grave violation of U.S. and international law, and a dangerous provocation not just to the government of Iran but to the people of Iran, and to governments and peoples throughout the region who are taking note of how the U.S. government behaves towards the governments and peoples of the region. Such lawless and provocative policies will not make Americans safer, but make it harder to establish normal relationships for the U.S. government and Americans in the region.”

Under Article I of the Constitution, re-affirmed by the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Congress, not the President, decides when the United States goes to war. It is essential for Congress to re-assert its constitutional authority if the American people are to have a meaningful say in war and peace, which is their right. The War Powers Resolution says that the President shall remove U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities if the Congress so directs. It is this provision that the Congress is now invoking. We call on Congress not only to pass this resolution, but to defund U.S. participation in unauthorized hostilities with Iran, as well as in unauthorized U.S. participation in the catastrophic Saudi war in Yemen, which Congress has already voted to stop.

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