The House voted Tuesday to kill Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI) latest attempt to restrict U.S. military activity in Lebanon. The vote wasn’t close: 189 in favor, 225 against. Twenty-two Democrats crossed the aisle to join Republicans in rejecting it.
Not even the Democratic caucus could stomach this one.
Tlaib’s war powers resolution would have barred U.S. forces from engaging in “any hostilities” in Lebanon.
U.S. combat troops are not engaged in hostilities in Lebanon, but training the Lebanese Armed Forces, the very force that’s fighting Hezbollah. The resolution, in other words, was written to stop something that isn’t happening, while potentially kneecapping the people actually pushing back against Iran’s proxy army next door.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) put it plainly on the House floor: “There are not U.S. combat forces conducting operations or engaged in hostilities in Lebanon. They are training the Lebanese Armed Forces. Why are they training? Because there’s probably at least 40,000, probably more, Hezbollah terrorists spread across the South of Lebanon that are actively engaged in targeting Israel and have been doing so for many years.”
Mast also called supporters of the resolution “proxies for Hezbollah.”
This is Tlaib’s second swing at Lebanon this month. Her first resolution was even broader, so sweeping it would have required U.S. military personnel protecting embassy staff to leave the country and cut off cooperation with Lebanon’s legitimate military forces. That one also failed.
Congress’ lone Palestinian American has called Israel’s military campaign “ethnic cleansing.” She has used her congressional platform to repeatedly attack U.S. support for Israel’s right to defend itself. And she’s managed to craft a resolution so nakedly one-sided that it couldn’t survive even a Democrat-majority vote in the most polarized Congress in living memory.
