Senate Democrats block defence bill over Iran war, Israel provisions

The Senate voted 50-46 to block debate on the annual defence bill over war funding and defence cooperation with Israel.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked debate on an annual defence policy bill, objecting not only to President Donald Trump’s war in Iran but also to provisions that would more closely integrate the United States and Israeli militaries.

The Senate voted 50-46, almost entirely along party lines, against opening debate on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), in a rare setback for one of the legislature’s few must-pass pieces of legislation.

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The annual defence policy bill sought to authorise much of a $1.15 trillion military budget proposed by Trump. The motion needed 60 votes to advance in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats had argued Congress should not move ahead with the legislation while Trump escalates the war in Iran. Some members of the party also objected to provisions that would deepen US military and intelligence cooperation with Israel, as well as the record size of the Pentagon budget.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had urged Democrats to oppose the bill, calling it “a permission slip” for the Trump administration to continue military operations in Iran without congressional oversight.

“Republicans want the Senate to take up the NDAA … as though Congress can debate the nation’s central national security bill while ignoring the nation’s most urgent national security crisis,” Schumer said before the vote. “We cannot.”

Outside Congress, a coalition of 14 civil liberties, foreign policy and anti-war organizations also urged lawmakers to oppose advancing the NDAA unless senators were guaranteed a vote on an amendment barring funding for what they described as Trump’s unauthorised war against Iran.

The coalition, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union, J Street, CODEPINK and Win Without War, argued Congress should use its constitutional “power of the purse” to enforce its authority over decisions about war.