On Tuesday, a bipartisan coalition of Washington leaders and foreign policy experts assembled on Capitol Hill to address what the future might hold for congressional war powers and U.S. foreign policy.
While the entire event, sponsored by the American Conservative, the National Interest, the Nation, and the Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy, is worth your time, the highlight was a conversation between Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., and how the Right and Left should work together to stop forever war, particularly America’s longest military conflict that is still lumbering on in Afghanistan.
The Senate duo even has a time goal in mind for drawing down that particular debacle.
“I’ve enjoyed working with Senator Udall who’s announced he’s going to retire in two years,” Paul said Tuesday, introducing Udall. “He said before he retires he’s going to try to end the war in Afghanistan.”
“Thank you, Rand,” Udall replied. “That’s a big task for us to do that in the next two years.” Paul and Udall introduced legislation earlier this month to do just that.
The New Mexico Democrat explained how reaching across the aisle to work with a Republican like Paul, who he largely agrees with on foreign policy, is crucial to getting anything done.
“It’s always a pleasure working with Rand on the issues of war and peace, civil liberties or some of the privacy issues that we join together on,” Udall said.
“The importance of bipartisan cooperation when it comes to exercising Congress’s war powers cannot be overstated,” Udall continued. “If we don’t work together, we abdicate this authority to the president.”
Udall made a point to note that their efforts weren’t about focusing on President Trump specifically, but any president of either party who assumes illegal executive powers.
“[The Founding Fathers] didn’t leave the decision [to go to war] to one person, not even one president,” Udall said. “I think both of us will agree [as Udall pointed to Paul] that we’re not picking on one president. There are several presidents that have assumed a lot of this power.”
Both men stressed that the power to declare war unquestionably falls upon Congress, but that since World War II, and certainly since Sept. 11, Congress has willfully surrendered its rightful role.
“I think Congress punts a lot of times because they’re hard votes …” Udall said. “I think one of the other reasons is bipartisanship is very hard to find in this body … on these foreign policy issues, on war and peace.”
“And so what that does is create a vacuum for the executive to get into and to go off into these areas, fighting wars that Congress has not authorized,” Udall continued, “Congress ceding this power to the executive is not what the Founders’ envisioned. There’s no doubt about that.”
Paul delved into how certain elements of the Right and Left, like those represented by Paul’s libertarian Republican and “America First” foreign policy, combined with Udall’s progressive anti-war Democratic philosophy, is mirrored by an establishment in both parties that represent an enduring “pro-war caucus.”
“You were talking about bipartisan, and I talked a little bit about right and left coming together” Paul said to Udall and the audience. “I think we’re always hopeful that there is this burgeoning movement bringing right and left together for less war, or for more congressional restraint or congressional oversight over war.”
“But there’s also the opposite consensus,” Paul noted. “You know, we’re this right-left continuum on one side, [but] there’s also this right-left continuum, which really is the majority. If you look at most of the committees, the chairman of most of the committees, Republican and Democrat are actually more for the pro-war caucus.”
“It’s been that way for a long time,” Paul said.
Udall agreed. “This was is the longest war in U.S. history,” Udall added. “We can count 2,300 American lives, 20,000 wounded, and $2 trillion spent.”
“I don’t want young men and women who were not even born when this war started to go fight a war where our objectives have already been achieved,” Udall lamented. “I’m concerned that that 2001 AUMF will be used to justify U.S. military force in new areas like Iran.”
Paul shared the same concern and wondered why the Washington “swamp” isn’t more responsive to the people on this issue.
“[Retired U.S. Army Colonel and conservative war critic] Andrew Bacevich writes about it being a bipartisan consensus,” Paul noted. “I think, though, it goes against the consensus of the people.”
“You look at polls, they got a poll in New Mexico or Kentucky … Well over half the people are ready to be done with the Afghan war,” Paul observed.
Most Americans, in poll after poll, for many years, have long wanted to bring their country home from Afghanistan. Still, the overwhelming majority in Washington falls somewhere between dragging their feet on this issue or worse, working overtime to make sure American wars virtually anywhere persist indefinitely.
Though they’re in the Senate minority on this issue, Sens. Rand Paul and Tom Udall vow to do everything they can to buck the tide. It’s the kind of bipartisanship Congress could use more of.
It’s the kind of persistence that could be the only hope of restoring sanity in foreign policy.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
