President Barack Obama’s controversial proposal for the authorization for use of military force (AUMF) in the war on ISIS, submitted to Congress in February, is now officially dead in the House.

However, its floundering has no bearing on the war itself, which has now entered its 36th week, with at least 3,249 coalition bombings in Iraq and Syria so far, including 17 reported on April 12th and 13th alone.

This reveals—analysts say—the proposal was nothing more than a political stunt in the first place, aimed at drumming up support for intervention while warding off real limits to the war.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters on Monday that at this point it does not look like the proposed AUMF will get the 218 votes needed to pass the lower chamber, meaning it is unlikely to even reach the House floor for a vote. Citing the Saudi-led siege and bombing campaign on Yemen, McCarthy indicated that an alternative version, granting even more war powers, will be floated from the right.

The draft had come under attack from hardliners, who charge the war powers it grants are not extensive enough, particularly where it comes to deployments of ground troops. Some Democratic lawmakers, on the other hand, raised concerns that the AUMF’s vague wording would grant excessively broad powers.

Voices from the concerned grassroots, calling for a rejection of war altogether, as well as an overall reversal in course from open-ended military aggression, have been consistently left out of the debate.

The proposed AUMF language called for the green-lighting of geographically limitless military operations, further deployments of ground troops, and years of intervention against a vaguely defined enemy.

Furthermore, it would have imposed no limits to the 2001 AUMF, which was passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks and has been invoked to authorize wars from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Somalia.

The White House, in fact, has maintained that the 2001 AUMF already gives the president legal cover for the ongoing war—a claim that is widely contested among international law experts.