The Trump administration is arguing that the war in Iran has already ended due to ceasefire that began in early April, an interpretation that may allow the White House to avoid the necessity to seek congressional approval.
The statement furthers an argument laid out by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during testimony within the Senate earlier Thursday, when he said the ceasefire effectively paused the war.
Under that rationale, the administration has not yet met the requirement mandated by a 1973 law to hunt formal approval from Congress for military motion that extends beyond 60 days.
A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to debate the administration’s position, said for purposes of that law, “the hostilities that began on Saturday, Feb. 28 have terminated.”
The official said the U.S. military and Iran haven’t exchanged fire because the two-week ceasefire that began April 7.
While the ceasefire has since been prolonged, Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. Navy is maintaining a blockade to forestall Iran’s oil tankers from getting out to sea.
Under the War Powers Resolution, the law that sought to constrain a president’s military powers, U.S. President Donald Trump had until Friday to hunt congressional authorization or stop fighting.
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The law also allows an administration to increase that deadline by 30 days.
Democrats have pushed the administration for formal approval of the Iran war, and the 60-day mark would likely have been a turning point for a swath of Republican lawmakers who backed temporary motion against Tehran but insisted on congressional input for something longer.
“That deadline is just not a suggestion; it’s a requirement,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted Thursday in favor of a measure that may end military motion in Iran since Congress hadn’t given its approval.
She added that “further military motion against Iran should have a transparent mission, achievable goals, and an outlined strategy for bringing the conflict to an in depth.”
Richard Goldberg, who served as director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction for the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, said he has beneficial to administration officials that they simply transition to a brand new operation, which he suggested might be called “Epic Passage,” a sequel to Operation Epic Fury.
That recent mission, he said, “would inherently be a mission of self-defense focused on reopening the strait while reserving the appropriate to offensive motion in support of restoring freedom of navigation.”
“That to me solves all of it,” added Goldberg, who’s now a senior adviser on the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank.
During testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Hegseth said it was the administration’s “understanding” that the 60-day clock was on pause while the 2 countries were in a ceasefire. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who had asked Hegseth in regards to the timeline, later told reporters that the defense secretary “advanced a really novel argument that I’ve never heard before” and “actually has no legal support.”
Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel on the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program and an authority on war powers, said that interpretation could be a “sizeable extension of previous legal gamesmanship” related to the 1973 law.
“To be very, very clear and unambiguous, nothing within the text or design of the War Powers Resolution suggests that the 60-day clock may be paused or terminated,” she said.
Other presidents have argued that the military motion they’ve taken was not intense enough or was too intermittent to qualify under the War Powers Resolution.
But Trump’s war in Iran will surely not be such a case, Ebright said, adding that lawmakers must thrust back against the administration on that type of argument.
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