March 25, 2021

Congress looks to Biden as an ally as it tries to finally rewrite authority for the war on terror

Source: CNN

Journalists: Jeremy Herb, Phil Mattingly

There's a new movement afoot to finally curb the President's 9/11 war powers, and the Republicans and Democrats pushing it have hope in a key ally: the President himself.

On the heels of President Joe Biden's military strikes in Syria, a bipartisan group of lawmakers thinks there's new momentum to finally replace those legal authorities, used to fight terrorism across the globe for nearly two decades.

It's a push that has been stalled for years, as congressional advocates of curbing the executive branch's war powers sought to rewrite the laws for more than a decade. But lawmakers say there are key reasons this time could be different: consensus is shifting to their side, they argue, as the 2001 and 2002 war authorizations drag on year after year, and they have an advocate they previously lacked -- a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman now sitting in the Oval Office.

Read the full story and more from CNN.

Author

  • Richard Fontaine

    Chief Executive Officer

    Richard Fontaine is the Chief Executive Officer of CNAS. He served as President of CNAS from 2012–19 and as Senior Fellow from 2009–12. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy ad...