By Patricia Zengerle and Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration argued that a ceasefire with Tehran had "terminated" hostilities as a legal deadline arrived on Friday for coming to Congress about the two-month Iran war.
Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the president can wage military action for only 60 days before ending it, asking Congress for authorization or seeking a 30-day extension due to "unavoidable military necessity regarding the safety
of United States Armed Forces" while withdrawing forces.
The war began on February 28, when Israel and the U.S. began airstrikes on Iran. On Friday, Iranian state news agency IRNA said Tehran had sent its latest proposal for negotiations with the U.S. to Pakistani mediators.
Trump formally notified Congress of the conflict 48 hours after the first airstrikes, starting the 60-day clock that ends May 1.
As that date approached, congressional aides and analysts said they expected the Republican president to sidestep the deadline. A senior Trump administration official said on Thursday the administration's view was that the war powers law deadline did not apply.
"For War Powers Resolution purposes, the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28, have terminated," said the official, requesting anonymity while describing the administration's thinking.
NO WAY OUT: DEMOCRATIC SENATOR
Congressional Democrats, who have tried repeatedly to pass war powers legislation that would force Trump to end the war or come to Congress for authorization, dismissed that characterization, saying there was nothing in the 1973 law allowing for a ceasefire.
They also said the continuing deployment of U.S. ships blockading Iranian oil exports was evidence of continuing hostility, not a ceasefire.
“After sixty days of conflict, President Trump still does not have a strategy or way out for this poorly planned war," Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement calling the deadline "a clear legal threshold" for Trump to act.
PARTY LOYALTY AS ELECTIONS LOOM
Trump's fellow Republicans, who hold slim majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives and rarely break from Trump, have voted almost unanimously to block every resolution seeking to end the conflict.
The Iran war has killed thousands, caused billions of dollars in damage and roiled world markets, disrupting energy shipments and boosting a wide range of consumer prices.
Polls show the war is unpopular among Americans, six months before November elections that will determine who controls Congress next year.
Trump's approval rating sank to the lowest level of his current term this week, as Americans blamed the war for higher prices.
The U.S. Constitution says only Congress, not the president, can declare war, but that restriction does not apply to short-term operations or to counter an immediate threat.
On Thursday, Trump received a briefing on plans for fresh military strikes to compel Iran to negotiate an end to the conflict.
If fighting resumes, Trump can tell lawmakers he has started a new 60-day clock. Presidents from both parties have repeatedly done so when waging intermittent hostilities since Congress passed the war powers law in response to the Vietnam War.
That conflict, widely unpopular with Americans, was also not authorized by Congress.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Bo Erickson; editing by Don Durfee and Rod Nickel)
