ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – In a public rebuke to the American government’s recent assassination of a top Iranian military commander, anti-war protests are scheduled to occur in at least seventy American cities today.
Many Americans supported the drone strike against Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on Friday, but many others fear that war is on the horizon as thousands of additional US troops are being deployed to Kuwait.
The ANSWER Coalition is working in partnership with many other activist organizations to protest against the looming possibility of a war with Iran, and hundreds of people have indicated via Facebook that they will attend rallies and protests against a possible war with Iran.
ANSWER, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, was founded in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and played an instrumental role in the US anti-war movement of the early 2000s, unsuccessfully opposing the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
19 years later, they are still standing against US military action in Iraq, calling for a National Day of Action to oppose “a new war in the Middle East.” In a statement released on their website, the activist coalition wrote:
“The targeted assassination and murder of a central leader of Iran is designed to initiate a new war. Unless the people of the United States rise up and stop it, this war will engulf the whole region and could quickly turn into a global conflict of unpredictable scope and potentially the gravest consequences.”
Most of the rallies are scheduled to take place in the early afternoon in midsize and large cities stretching from coast to coast.
US politicians are also taking action at the legislative level. Democratic Senator Time Kaine of Virginia introduced a war powers resolution to the Senate which aims to prevent US President Donald Trump from engaging in military action against Iran without congressional approval.
War powers resolutions are “privileged,” meaning the Republican majority in the Senate cannot block the resolution from being considered in committee and floor debate.
In a statement on his congressional website, Kaine stated, “The resolution requires that any hostilities with Iran must be explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force, but does not prevent the United States from defending itself from imminent attack.”
It was also widely reported by US media outlets that Independent Senator Bernie Sanders and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna had introduced legislation “to prohibit any funding for offensive military force in or against Iran without prior congressional authorization.”
In reality, the two legislators announced the introduction of the legislation, but have not actually introduced a bill yet.
According to transparency website Govtrack.us, which publishes the status of all federal legislation and the voting records of every representative and senator in Congress, Tim Kaine’s Senate resolution is the only recent legislation pertaining to Iran which has been introduced.
In their statement, Sanders and Khanna indicated that the bill they plan to introduce will closely resemble a measure to restrict funding for unauthorized military activity that was originally included in the National Defense Authorization Act, but stripped out of the final NDAA bill before it passed the Senate in December.
The two legislators serve in different houses of the United States’ bicameral legislator, so it is not clear whether their bill will be introduced in the House, in the Senate, or if an identical bill will be submitted to both the House and the Senate at the same time.
In their joint statement, Sanders and Khanna wrote:
“After authorizing a disastrous, $738 billion military budget that placed no restrictions on this president from starting an unauthorized war with Iran, Congress now has an opportunity to change course. Our legislation blocks Pentagon funding for any unilateral actions this president takes to wage war against Iran without Congressional authorization.”
The US Congress will start its new session on January 7 after its annual recess, and significant anti-war protests and demonstrations across the US could influence the way members of Congress vote on any new legislation pertaining to military funding, congressional authorization to declare war and the current situation in Iraq and Iran.
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