Sullivan calls for Iran war to continue for as long as Trump desires

According to Sen. Dan Sullivan, the war in Iran should keep going for as long as Donald Trump wants.

Congress has no power to stop him, according to Sullivan, who has voted 14 times to continue the war.

Democratic challenger Mary Peltola and Sen. Lisa Murkowski say that Sullivan is wrong and that Congressional approval is needed to prolong the hostilities, citing the tenets of the War Powers Resolution.

Sullivan has long claimed that the Constitution gives any president the power to do what Trump is doing, regardless of what members of Congress believe.

“A war powers vote is about removing American forces from a region,” Sullivan told reporters after his latest vote to continue the war. “And when there are troops in contact, I don’t believe in doing that.”

Peltola and Murkowski have argued that Congress has a duty to act.

“There is a need for the War Powers Act. I do not believe that any President should be making these kinds of substantive decisions unilaterally,” Peltola said earlier this year about ending the Iran war.

There is a law that says after the president has gone to war for 60 days, military action has to be approved by Congress.

In the spring, Sullivan claimed there was no room for Congress to call the shots.

"We've got troops in combat," said Sullivan about the fourth vote against the Iran war. "We've got what I'm calling a freedom of navigation operation going on right now, which is dangerous."

Sullivan has sided with claims by Trump that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional.

Sullivan has also argued that any president needs congressional approval before going to war.

"If one of the military options that the administration is looking at is a preemptive war on the Korean peninsula launched by the United States, that would require the authorization of Congress," Sullivan said in 2017. "Article I of the U.S. Constitution is very clear about that."

Sullivan has not spoken clearly about the disastrous handling of the war in Iran, the economic consequences or what comes next.

“We must ensure that we do not squander the leverage that we have built over the past six years,” Sullivan said in a lengthy summer campaign letter in which he evaded all of the key questions.