Earlier today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved an AUMF for the war against ISIS by a 10-8 vote:

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on Thursday to authorize military force against the Islamic State for three years but prohibited American troops from combat.

The 10-8 split was along party lines. Seven of the eight nays came from Republicans that objected to any restrictions in the AUMF, and the eighth came from Rand Paul, who objected to the AUMF for not being restricted enough. In other words, there was absolutely no opposition on the committee to the policy itself, but only to the limits that were or weren’t placed on it. Paul was right to be concerned that the AUMF would permit the U.S. to take action wherever ISIS’ “associated forces” are, which could be in a number of places. Then again, the war against ISIS from the start has been open-ended, ill-defined, and likely to continue expanding beyond any limits that one wants to put on it. The answer to this isn’t to argue for a partial intervention, but to oppose the intervention outright because it is ill-considered and unnecessary.

The disagreements over restrictions in the AUMF are almost beside the point. Since the administration has already made clear that it doesn’t want any restrictions on how it can fight its war, it is unlikely to respect the restrictions included in the AUMF. The administration has already shown that it is more than happy to distort and misinterpret existing AUMFs however it wishes to justify what it wants to do, so the restrictions in this new AUMF will constrain the administration only so long as it wishes to remain within those limits. Giving the war three years before it has to be reauthorized will easily take the war past the end of the current administration, at which point it will become Obama’s successor’s problem. Meanwhile, the administration will proceed as it wishes on the assumption that it doesn’t need Congress’ approval for whatever it wants to do. Congress is not really going to disabuse the administration of that notion. There appears to be an overwhelming consensus in favor of a war that isn’t likely to achieve its stated goal, and it appears that there will hardly be any dissenting voices in Congress against it.