President Trump condemned Democrats after vetoing a resolution that would have limited his ability to use military action against Iran without congressional approval.
The bipartisan resolution, which the president vetoed on Wednesday, came in response to Trump’s decision to carry out a drone strike against Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in early January.
“This was a very insulting resolution, introduced by Democrats as part of a strategy to win an election on Nov. 3 by dividing the Republican Party,” Trump said in a statement. “The few Republicans who voted for it played right into their hands.”
Eight Republican senators joined with Democrats to pass the legislation in February, and the Democratic-controlled House passed the resolution 227-186 in March. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Republicans to vote against the measure and said at the time he would “strongly oppose” the effort.
“We appear to have restored some measure of deterrence in the Middle East, so let’s not screw it up,” the Kentucky Republican said in January.
The strike on Soleimani escalated tensions between the United States and Iran. Soleimani was the leader of the Quds Force, an elite special operations unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the U.S. military said he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops during the Iraq War.
Iran responded to Soleimani’s death by firing more than a dozen missiles at two bases in Iraq that were housing U.S. forces. Dozens of U.S. soldiers suffered brain injuries from the attack. The U.S. announced on Tuesday that 29 of them would be receiving Purple Hearts.
During the missile attack, Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing 176 people on board. Initially, the regime called the crash an accident before conceding it shot down the plane by accident. A wave of protests against the regime have taken place this year.
The U.S. also killed Mahdi al Muhandis, leader of the Iranian-backed militia group Popular Mobilization Forces, during the January drone strike, representing another major blow to Iranian operations in the region.
