In last night’s State of the Union, President Obama reiterated his call upon Congress to pass a new “AUMF” — or Authorization for Use of Military Force — against ISIS, rather than continuing to wage war pursuant to the original 2001 AUMF against al Qaeda and its collaborators.
But despite the president’s words, his actions make clear that he actually wants no such thing — as Harvard Law’s Jack Goldsmith observes at Brookings’s widely read Lawfare blog:
At this point it seems pretty clear that the Obama administration is not serious about securing a new AUMF. It seeks to appear to want to put the fight against the Islamic State on a stronger legal footing. But its actions reveal that it doesn’t really want this (and that the President doesn’t mean what he often says about the importance to our democracy of having the contemporary Congress on board in this context). Really wanting to put the fight on a stronger legal footing requires taking a position on what is needed and why, and pushing hard for it. The administration has never shown any taste for working with Congress on AUMF-related issues, dating back to the 2009Archives speech (when the President pledged “work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime” for long-term detention, but never followed up), and the 2013 National Defense University speech (when the President pledged to “engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force” in efforts to “refine” its mandate, but never followed up). And it doesn’t show a taste for it now.
Part of this reticence flows from the administration’s well-known distaste for the politics of these issues. But part of it, I suspect, is that the President does not want his legacy associated with a new AUMF that extends the endless war against Islamist terrorists legally, conceptually, and geographically.
Part of this reticence flows from the administration’s well-known distaste for the politics of these issues. But part of it, I suspect, is that the President does not want his legacy associated with a new AUMF that extends the endless war against Islamist terrorists legally, conceptually, and geographically.
Read the whole thing, as well as Goldsmith‘s other writings (e.g., here and here) on the need for a new AUMF.
