When it comes to war powers, the Constitution has become little more than an irrelevant and archaic piece of paper. There’s no sugarcoating it: The system the founders codified in the Constitution for making war in our country’s name is increasingly disregarded by our political leaders.
There’s a stark difference between how war is supposed to be conducted under the Constitution in this country and the status quo we have right now.
The original system included a rigorous regime of checks and balances, where the president was expected to send his representatives to Capitol Hill to make the case for military action. In its infinite wisdom, Congress would hear the case, ask probing questions about the proposed course of action, and engage in a thorough public debate about potential costs, benefits, consequences (intended and unintended), and alternative options.
Only if lawmakers granted the president the statutory authority to use force would the United States be permitted to go forward. This is how the founders drew up the system.
Then, at the opposite extreme, there is the way war is made today.
Take President Trump’s airstrike against Iranian general Qassem Soleimani as the latest example. The president’s defenders argue that a single strike on a terrorist mastermind is not a war-like action, but this isn’t how the Iranians will see it. They undoubtedly view it as an assassination and an act of war.
The president, in the dead of night and after consultations with his advisers, ordered a missile attack on an Iranian general’s car as it left the Baghdad airport. The car burst into a ball of flames, likely obliterating any slim chance of de-escalation with the Iranians along with it. The administration didn’t bother to consult Congress because in the executive branch’s expansionist view, there’s no need to bother with that pesky constitutional process.
The morning after, Congress was caught with its pants down. The speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, and congressional intelligence committees only learned of the strike when the news broke, despite it being one of the most consequential decisions the Trump administration has ever made. And only when Congress is back in session did lawmakers, typically of the opposing party, finally get involved, usually through press statements, sternly worded letters to the White House, and the occasional half-hearted attempt to constrain the president from further action.
The system has turned inside out.
Making matters worse is the intense polarization of our political system, where politicians on both sides of the aisle treat war power issues as just another football in the endless, zero-sum battle otherwise known as American politics.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi may be screaming about the executive branch’s contempt of Congress’s war-making authority today, but the California Democrat didn’t seem all that upset when President Barack Obama intervened militarily in Libya with a bogus legal rationale. Similar hypocrisy plagues House Republicans, many of whom blasted Obama for failing to consult with Congress before the Libya intervention but appear perfectly fine with Trump taking preemptive action last week.
Reverence to the nation’s founding document is too important to be cast aside in the name of party politics. Proper respect for war powers matters 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.
Washington has lost its way, and Congress needs to take its power back.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
