Gene Healy explains that the “limits” in the administration’s draft AUMF for the ISIS war don’t mean anything:

In his December testimony, Secretary Kerry cautioned Congress against “micromanaging” the president’s military options. The far greater danger, as the president’s draft AUMF makes clear, is further codifying our drift toward perpetual presidential war.

As Healy says, and as I noted last week, any limits in the new draft resolution are irrelevant so long as the 2001 AUMF remains in force. That is the resolution that the administration has relied on to justify its illegal war thus far, and that is the resolution that has to be altered or scrapped if there is to be any chance of limiting the conduct of this new war. Healy writes:

Even if it were [clear], President Obama continues to claim that “existing statutes,” including the 2001 AUMF, “provide me with the authority I need” to wage war. Since the Obama AUMF does nothing to rein in the authorities the president has claimed under the 2001 AUMF, he could do an end-run around any new restrictions by claiming his actions are being carried out under authority granted by the earlier authorization.

Until that 2001 authorization is repealed or made to expire soon, anything that the new AUMF supposedly prevents would be permitted by the 2001 resolution, especially when the latter is being interpreted to mean whatever the administration wants it to mean. The “limits” included in the draft are not restrictions on what the administration can do. They are non-binding promises about what the current administration will probably do, and that could be revised at any time depending on circumstances or the start of the next administration. A better course of action for Congress would be to refuse to pass a new resolution and instead repeal the 2001 authorization and start over from scratch.