WHEN
senators this month asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about possible
military action against Syria or Iran, she recited the administration's
standard response: all options remain "on the table." Pressed on
whether any such action might require congressional authorization, Ms. Rice
demurred. "I don't want to try and circumscribe presidential war
powers," she said, adding that "the president retains those powers in
the war on terrorism and in the war in Iraq."
Although
Ms. Rice's evasion exhausted the committee's attention span, the war powers
issue cries out for attention. In a post-9/11 world, what limits - if any -
exist on the president's authority to use force?
The
Constitution addresses the matter with apparent clarity. Article I, Section 8
assigns to Congress the authority "to declare war." After 1945,
however, the perceived imperatives of waging the cold war all but nullified
this provision. When it came to using force, presidents exercised wide
discretion, ordering American troops into action and notifying Congress after
the fact. The legislative branch no longer "declared" war; at most,
it issued blank checks that the White House cashed at its convenience. Occasional
efforts to constrain presidential freedom of action, like the Vietnam-inspired
War Powers Resolution of 1973, accomplished little.
After
9/11, the Bush administration wasted little time in expanding executive
prerogatives even further. Acting in his capacity as commander in chief,
President Bush committed the nation to open-ended war on a global scale.
Concluding that eradicating terrorism meant going permanently on the offensive,
he promulgated a doctrine of preventive war. Finding that Saddam Hussein posed
a clear and present danger, he moved to put this Bush Doctrine into effect in
Iraq.
On
Capitol Hill, the response to this sweeping assertion of presidential authority
fell somewhere between somnolent and supine. With the administration gearing up
to invade Iraq, the Congress roused itself just long enough to instruct the
president in October 2002 to "defend the national security of the United
States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." As Lyndon Johnson did
with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964, Mr. Bush interpreted this as a mandate
to wage war however he saw fit, an interpretation that Secretary Rice has now
reaffirmed.
Yet the brief history of America's global war on terrorism
demonstrates the folly of allowing the executive branch a free hand in determining
the scope and conduct of that conflict. Deference to Mr. Bush's fixation with Saddam Hussein has
cost the United States dearly. To expand that misadventure will only drive
those costs higher. Furthermore, an attack on either Syria or Iran, launched
merely on the president's say-so, would produce a profound reaction, in all
likelihood surpassing that induced by Richard Nixon's 1970 incursion into
Cambodia.
In
the interests of national security, earlier generations endowed whoever
happened to occupy the Oval Office with the authority to unleash Armageddon.
The perceived urgency of the Soviet threat took precedence over constitutional
scruples. Deterring yesterday's enemy meant being able to wage war in an
instant, with one man issuing the orders.
But
defeating today's jihadists, who are unlikely to be impressed by the prospect
of incineration, requires a different strategy. Victory will come when we have
deprived violent radical Islam of its claim to legitimacy. Incorporating
military power into that effort will require prudence - we have seen the
consequences that rashness can produce. Hardly less important, sustaining
military commitments once undertaken will demand a national consensus, which
existed after 9/11 but which the present administration has since squandered.
In the interests of national security today, we should curb
presidential war-making powers.
A hitherto compliant Congress must reclaim the institutional authority
conferred upon it by the Constitution. When it comes to wars, the first responsibility
of the legislative branch is not to support the commander in chief. It is to
exercise independent judgment, an obligation that transcends party. Members of
Congress who lack the wit or the moral courage to fulfill this obligation ought
to be held accountable by voters.