Trump defies legal limit of 60 days to continue war against Iran: the Pentagon’s justification

According to the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war.

But a law of 1973 allows the president to initiate a limited military intervention to respond to an emergency situation, as long as he requests authorization from the legislative branch to mobilize troops for more than 60 days.

This Friday is the deadline, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued Thursday that, because of the ceasefire, “the 60-day period is suspended.”

“For the purposes of the War Powers Resolution, hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28 have ended,” a senior administration official told AFP late on Thursday. He emphasized that there has been no crossfire between the United States and Iran since the truce declared on April 7.

The United States imposes a naval blockade to Iranian ports in retaliation for Tehran’s closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the hydrocarbons consumed in the world transited before the war, which has sent oil prices skyrocketing.

A senior American official considered a possible prolongation of the blockade “for months”.

With the prospect of a war stalemate, Brent, the global crude oil benchmark, briefly surpassed $126 on Thursday, a high since early 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Friday around 3 in the morning Argentine time rose 1.3% to $111.85.

In turn, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate gained 0.8%, to 105.90 USD.

The Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtab Jamenei stated on Thursday that the United States has suffered a “shameful defeat” against Iran.

Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian called the US blockade a “continuation of military operations.”

In Tehran, air defense systems were activated on Thursday night against drones and small aircraft.

“The noise from the anti-aircraft defense ceased after about 20 minutes of activity and response against small aircraft,” the Tasnim and Fars agencies indicated. They added that Tehran had returned to a “normal situation.”

The war has caused thousands of deadmainly in Iran and Lebanon.

Despite the truce and the first negotiations on April 11 in Islamabad, diplomacy seems to be at a standstill.

The world economy resents it daily due to the consequences of the Hormuz blockade, with increases in inflation and downward revisions to growth.

On the Lebanese front of the war, where Israel fights pro-Iran group Hezbollahthe violence continues, with at least 17 killed Thursday in Israeli attacks.

The US embassy in Lebanon called for a meeting between Lebanese and Israeli leaders.

Representatives of both countries have met twice in Washington in recent weeks, in the first such meetings in decades, after Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2.

Trump has stated that he hopes to receive Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “in the next two weeks.”

Israeli operations in Lebanon have left more than 2,500 dead and displaced more than a million since the beginning of March, according to Lebanese authorities.