President Trump’s decision to cancel his Latin America trip is lamentable but necessary. He is sending Vice President Mike Pence instead because the crisis in Syria demands the president’s full attention.
Over the weekend, the military forces of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad launched another chemical bombing attack in Douma, Syria, near Damascus. With the survival of his regime on the line, this tyrant has repeatedly resorted to using chemical weapons that are illegal under international agreements and which in 2013 he agreed not to use, make, or stockpile.
His latest atrocity is a reminder that, whatever their good intentions might have been in Syria, former President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, were hopelessly, culpably naive in trusting Russia to guarantee the elimination of Assad’s weapons of mass destruction.
As a result of Assad’s latest war crime, it is likely that within days or even hours, America and France will launch joint reprisals against his military and especially his chemical weapons capability. This is reasonable, given U.S. involvement in the conflict so far. But we urge Trump first to do something presidents seldom do, and that is to go to Congress and to the public, explain his intentions, and get the appropriate, constitutional legislative approval.
It was jarring when, in March 2011, Obama unilaterally declared war on Libya in a Saturday radio address from Brazil. It was not what the Constitution demands, and Trump would do well to avoid this high-handed executive style.
Trump could go a long way toward proving his critics wrong, showing that he can govern collaboratively in a system of checks and balances, if he goes to Congress for authorization of the planned strikes, something Obama never did before he disastrously destabilized Libya.
If Trump does this, he will set a healthy precedent, and Congress will assuredly reward him with its approval for a very limited action to prevent further atrocities by Assad.
But Trump shouldn’t stop there. He should also speak face-to-face to the public from the Oval Office. In this era, it is extremely important that the president planning to wage war explain himself and reassure the nation that he will not entangle America in another Middle Eastern war, as both of his predecessors did.
Reflexive critics will regard a humble Trump going to Congress as improbable. But this is something that should be demanded from all presidents. Who better than Trump, so often a swaggerer, to do this?
The power to wage war is an awesome power and always risks increasing executive power at the expense of the republican system. The Founders gave presidents power over how war is waged, but left the decision of whether to go to war or not to Congress. As James Madison explained in 1795, “The separation of the power of declaring war, from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived, to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.”
If Trump transparently states his intentions and broadcasts his rationale, he will not only be helping his country rebuild its regular constitutional order, but also doing himself a world of political good at the same time.
