WASHINGTON — Three years after U.S. aircraft began bombing Islamic State group hideouts, the military still lacks a clear authorization from Congress for the fight.

Now, four months into Donald Trump's presidency, a group of lawmakers is hoping they can jump-start that debate again and find a possible compromise.

On Thursday, Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., held a Capitol Hill news conference imploring their colleagues to take up the issue of a new Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, pertaining to ISIS and related militant groups that have emerged since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They called the lack of action thus far a moral failing of lawmakers and a dangerous message for American troops overseas.

"Congress should be vigorous about its (constitutional) responsibilities," Kaine told reporters. "Our adversaries, our allies and our troops need to know where we stand."

That's a refrain that Kaine and a small group of other lawmakers have been repeating since then-President Barack Obama began operations against ISIS in summer 2014, but their arguments have mostly fallen on deaf ears.

Both Obama and Trump have ordered military missions in the region (and in other locations around the globe) based on broad interpretations of the open-ended authorizations passed by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Flake-Kaine proposal would repeal those authorizations and more clearly spell out the parameters of national security actions the White House can take against specific sets of foreign threats.

It would place geographic restrictions on offensive operations and install new reporting requirements to guard against mission creep.

But at the moment, the specifics are less of an issue than the overarching concept of a new AUMF. While military leaders have frequently voiced support for the move, lawmakers have been less warm to embrace it, ignoring Obama’s 2015 authorization proposal and multiple others from colleagues in favor of the status quo.

Kaine said he thinks that’s partly due to legislative cowardice.

"People don’t want to cast a war vote because there are going to be consequences," he said. "And that should be the gravest vote we cast."

But he also concedes that the new threat posed by groups like al-Qaida and ISIS upend traditional national security strategies against hostile states. Determining how to craft a force authorization that covers loosely connected groups, rather than foreign governments with defined borders, presents a vast array of challenges.

Flake said those are challenges that can’t continue to be ignored.

"We’re now 16 years in," he said when asked why he has hope that progress can be made on the issue now. "We have a new administration. We have a new secretary of defense who came out in favor of it. I believe the administration will want it because it strengthens their hand as they enter negotiations (with other countries)."

White House officials haven’t weighed in on the idea, but both Flake and Kaine insist that top military officials will convince them to sign a new force authorization if Congress does the work.

Just hours before the pair’s news conference, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he would work with Flake and Kaine on the issue when Congress returns next month, although no specific hearings or markups have been announced.

"Our colleagues, as we speak to them, you’d be hard-pressed to find one who says: ‘No, we shouldn’t do an AUMF.’ It’s always, ‘We should do it,’ but people had a hard time coming up with something that could fit the evolving threat we had," Flake said. "We think this bipartisan language does a good job with that."

When a reporter noted that Flake also insisted he had "good language" in his earlier AUMF attempts, the Arizona senator laughed.

"This is better," he said.

Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.

Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.

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