Iran, Bombs and the Constitution
Now that President Trump has used “bunker buster” bombs against three Iranian nuclear sites, the coming days will be consumed with such questions as: did we end the Iranian nuclear bomb threat? Will Iran retaliate and if so how? Will the U.S. find itself in a prolonged war? Will the Iranian regime change and, if so, in positive or negative ways? How will the U.S. attack impact our relations and foreign policy goals with other nations in the Middle East and beyond? How will the world economy and the price of oil be impacted? Pundits, the press and politicians will engage in heated discussion on such questions. It may be quite some time before we have fact-based, reasoned answers.
But there are other questions - questions vitally important to the future of our constitutional democracy – which are not likely to garner the same kind of attention. Does a President get to launch a war without a declaration of war from Congress as required by the Constitution? Is Congress willing to relinquish its Constitutional obligation as it has done in the current crisis?
When a president launches a preemptive attack on another country, however dangerous that country may be, the nation has gone to war. When Congress is bypassed in that decision, failing to demand it be engaged in examining and debating a president’s military planning that may lead to war, it has shirked its Constitutional responsibility. Members are required by the Constitution and their solemn oath not only to authorize war but by that stipulation to serve as a check on the Executive Branch. In our Constitutional system we depend on dialogue and debate to reach prudent decisions in the national interest. Delegating decision making on matters of war and peace to a single individual invites disaster and with it the loss of public treasure and trust.
The public will tend to judge President Trump’s attack on Iran by its short-term consequences. It will be less likely to judge his actions by the long-term question: are we a nation that can go to war on the decision of a president alone?
There is a precedent that supporters of President Trump may well cite in the current situation. In March 2011, President Obama launched an air campaign in Libya in support of a U.N. Resolution to protect civilians against atrocities by Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi. The President did not seek Congressional authorization.
Less than two months later, on June 3, 2011, a bipartisan resolution of Congress passed stating that “The President has failed to provide Congress with a compelling rationale based upon United States national security interests for current United States military activities regarding Libya.” It also forbade the use of ground forces in Libya. Forty-five Democrats crossed party lines to vote for the resolution. Obama would later acknowledge that the air campaign was insufficient in that it included no planning for the post-Gadhafi government that might emerge. He cited that oversight as the “worst mistake” of his presidency as Libya, without Gadhafi, then descended into chaos.
When any president can ignore Congress’s role and launch a war it imperils our Constitutional democracy. When Congress fails to prevent this – or forcibly object - it abandons its Constitutional responsibility. Individual members of Congress may support such presidential behavior because they like it or fear his and/or voter retribution, but that is a moral weakness and political evasion that turns Article 1 of the Constitution into simply a parchment barrier that cannot hold back a slide into authoritarianism.
Beware the allure of a strongman when it comes at the expense of a strong democracy. No amount of success in the current war, if there be such, justifies abandoning the Constitution.
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