Speaker Paul Ryan is urging top Republican committee chairmen to explore whether there’s support in the House to formally authorize a military campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the early stages of what appears to be Capitol Hill’s most serious effort to define the effort against the terrorist group.

Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, is spearheading the push, but there is serious skepticism within his leadership and in the House Republican Conference that he will be able to rally GOP lawmakers around a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Some senior rank-and-file Republicans even wonder why he’s bringing the issue back to the forefront, with just a year left in President Barack Obama’s term. But Ryan aides and allies are calling this a “kicking the tires” phase to discern what exactly GOP lawmakers would want to see in a new AUMF, and whether it’s worthy of House consideration.


Ryan’s desire to define the mission against the Islamic State would be one of his most ambitious efforts since taking over as speaker in late October. Ryan has said he wants to use 2016 to craft a new Republican policy slate and defining the mission against what most consider to be a major world threat could help bolster the party’s national security chops.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) will kick off the process in earnest Thursday when he begins a series of meetings with Republicans to gauge support — and potential tripwires — for a measure that would provide explicit congressional authorization for the battle against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, or ISIS.

The desire to replace the current AUMF, which was written in 2001 and targeted groups connected to the 9/11 attacks, is not new. Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wanted to get it done, but was unable to before he resigned last fall. Obama sent Congress a draft AUMF a year ago, but it went nowhere in the face of bipartisan opposition. The president has repeatedly called on lawmakers to act, including in comments last month.

The details are complicated, and the politics are tricky. Many Republicans privately say a vote for a new AUMF would be seen as tantamount to approving Obama’s foreign policy. Democrats feel burned by their support of the Iraq war and are wary of giving any president — even Obama — overly broad authority.

From a practical sense, there are two main points of contention: Whether to bar widespread use of U.S. combat troops in Syria and Iraq, and placing limits on the time for American military operations. Many Democrats would like to explicitly prohibit Obama from sending combat forces into battle. A number of Democrats — and some Republicans, such as Michigan Rep. Justin Amash — favor a sunset provision that would force the White House to come back to Capitol Hill for additional authorization once the original resolution expires.

“I’d like to see something clearly defined,” Amash said. “You have to have your enemy clearly defined, you have to have your goals clearly defined. And any AUMF going forward should have a sunset date, which doesn’t mean you’d have to bring your troops home, but Congress would have to reauthorize that.”

Furthermore, Royce’s Foreign Affairs Committee is filled with diverse opinions on what should be done when it comes to ISIL.

“I’m looking forward to continuing our discussions. As I’ve said before, if we can get an AUMF done that ensures our commanders have the flexibility they need to defeat ISIS, I want to move it,” Royce said in a statement. “But ultimately, it is going to be up to President Obama to lead. Containment has failed. The administration already has the authority it needs to take the fight to these radical Islamist terrorists, and it needs to step up.”

Yet even if Ryan and Royce are able to craft a measure that could attract enough support to pass the House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has cast doubt on his chamber’s willingness to consider an AUMF during this Congress.

But the issue is gaining more attention than it's had at any point over the past year. Ryan has been meeting consistently with Royce and chatting with his inner circle about the feasibility of pushing through an AUMF. And Royce has been taking the temperature of Democrats through conversations with his committee’s ranking member, New York Rep. Eliot Engel.

“While I want to give the president the authority to do what he wants with ISIS, I don’t want to give carte blanche,” Engel said. “We went down that road once before, and it turned out to be a disaster.”

The White House has spoken informally with House Republican leadership aides about the new effort.

“As we have said throughout this process, we are open to considering reasonable amendments to the language presented by the president,” a White House official told POLITICO on Wednesday, referring to the AUMF proposal the Obama submitted to Congress in February. That measure would repeal the 2002 Iraq war authorization and grant the president the authority to conduct military efforts against ISIL but prohibit “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” The use of special forces troops would be allowed, as would rescue operations. It would expire after three years.

But even those who back a new AUMF and praise Obama’s consultations with Congress on how to structure the resolution are wary of the present debate. The skepticism dates, in part, to a meeting early last year between House Republicans and White House counsel Neil Eggleston that left a bad taste in several lawmakers’ mouths, according to GOP lawmakers and aides.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), a West Point and Harvard Law graduate who sits on the Intelligence Committee, asked whether the White House wants Congress to further curtail the president’s authority by forbidding “boots on the ground.” Eggleston answered, “Yes,” according to multiple sources present. Republicans oppose limiting troops through an AUMF. That anecdote has been repeated several times in closed GOP strategy meetings.

White House officials dispute the GOP characterization of what was said at the session. They say Eggleston would never have supported the idea of barring boots on the ground in an AUMF. White House officials acknowledge that the Obama plan is, by design, narrower in authority than the 9/11 resolution, but would allow the use of special forces and rescue units for limited ground operations.

“I think it is the right thing to do to provide the legislative support for the commander in chief to engage in these activities that are important and the right thing to do,” Pompeo said in an interview Wednesday. “The devil is in the details because the administration and many Democrats have a different view of what that ought to look like.”

Put plainly, most House Republicans don’t trust Obama when it comes to foreign policy. Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), a former U.S. Army attorney, said he wants Congress to draft a new AUMF but worries about doing so during Obama’s tenure.

“In a perfect world, on paper, I’m all for it,” Rooney said. “But when it comes to Obama and his red lines and his flub-ups he’s had internationally, I hate to be seen giving him the authority or green light or my vote to do anything because I have no confidence in him at all in that theater.”

Democrats have sensed the Republican skittishness. Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who has spent two decades in the foreign affairs arena, said, “In an ideal world, we would, of course, authorize the use of military force.”

“But the age-old problem is that people want it both ways,“ Connolly added. “They want the freedom to criticize and kvetch, but they don’t want the responsibility of authorizing something.”

He said the odds are “very low” of passing a measure out of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

But sources close to Ryan say the speaker believes Republicans should try to at least see what’s possible. The new effort has been in the works since Ryan took the speakership and started with meetings with Royce and other top national security figures in the House, including Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas).

Nunes, for one, has had a change of heart about working on a new AUMF.

“I’ve actually come around on this,” Nunes said Wednesday in an interview. “I believe the ’01 AUMF is fine, in terms of being able to go after Islamic extremists, but for the sake of the Congress to be relevant because the White House will not lead, the Congress needs to step up and lead because the country needs the Congress to.”

