Sen. Rand Paul warned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that the Trump administration does not have permission from Congress to go to war with Iran, Politico reported.
When Pompeo tried to deflect the Kentucky Republican’s question if Iran was included in the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which allowed for American troops to fight those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, Paul chided him and stated that “Only Congress can declare war.”
Pompeo’s testimony came the same week that President Donald Trump designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, raising concerns about future confrontations with Iranian-backed forces.
The secretary of state also tried to deflect a question from Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland about whether Pyongyang had taken meaningful steps to share details of its nuclear program before Pompeo admitted that international inspectors were not on the ground in North Korea examining its nuclear program the way they were in Iran.
Pompeo also attempted to avoid being pinned down on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, refusing to say if the U.S. is maintaing its longtime support for a two-state solution to solve the conflict.
However, when asked about the Trump administration’s yet-to-be-released Mideast peace plan, he criticized past ideas aimed at resolving the crisis as old, tired and ineffective, saying “The old set of ideas are not worth re-treading.”
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