Nancy Pelosi is a hypocrite. She’s also right.
In 2011, Pelosi had the opportunity to join Republicans in reasserting Congress’s war powers after President Barack Obama launched an unauthorized, prolonged military intervention into Libya, which, it’s worth noting, was a complete disaster and has left Libya a failed state. Instead, she bowed to the executive branch, saying, “I’m satisfied that the president has the authority he needs to go ahead.” The California Democrat tossed aside Congress’s constitutionally mandated war powers when her party was in power, and now she has buyer’s remorse.
After President Trump successfully ordered the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week without so much as even notifying much of Congress, Pelosi is raising the alarm.
Of course, Soleimani was a terrorist madman with the blood of hundreds of Americans on his hands. Every American should be glad to see his corpse rotting. But the consequences of the United States assassinating such high-ranking officials will almost certainly lead to further conflict with Iran.
The Constitution demands that Trump seek congressional authorization before launching a war. Article I, Section 8 is clear: “The Congress shall have power to … declare war.” Yes, the president is established under the Constitution as commander in chief, and this implies that he does not need Congress’s permission for every single military action. But he still requires congressional authorization to make war. Regardless of whether the assassination of Soleimani alone constitutes an act of war, and whether it is itself within the president’s legal rights, it’s hard to deny that any prolonged military intervention in Iran that comes as an outgrowth of this act would be a war.
Our current system has let Trump and his predecessors get away with such prolonged military action repeatedly and at will. Notably, under the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, we’ve given the last several presidents essentially unlimited running room to wage war in the Middle East without so much as consulting Congress. And as Jack Hunter noted, legislators had a chance to revisit the AUMF in a defense bill just in July of this year, and a majority chose not to. So, too, Obama was allowed by congressional negligence to wage a protracted regime-change war in Libya without Congress’s approval.
Now, after Trump’s escalations with Iran, Pelosi is finally seeing the light.
With a newfound desire to ensure “respect for Congress’s war powers granted to it by the Constitution” that was notably absent from Pelosi’s Obama-era tenure, she will have the House vote on a measure that would mandate Trump get congressional authorization for the conflict in Iran or cease military action after 30 days.
Pelosi’s inconsistent application of this principle aside, this is well warranted. Pelosi is completely right to force the Trump administration to get Congress’s approval if this turns into a protracted new military campaign. Respect for the proper congressional war powers as established in the Constitution is of the utmost importance.
As Daniel DePetris wrote, it’s important because “only a national discussion about military force can serve as a guardrail to hasty, reckless interventions that create more problems than they solve and saddle our country with more endless, expensive, and purposeless foreign commitments.”
So, for once, constitutional conservatives should hope that Pelosi’s vote succeeds. As I’ve previously explained, war with Iran would be a disaster. If Trump really wants to take us down that path, he at the very least should have to go through the proper process to do so.
