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| Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this. |
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Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this.
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President Trump’s calibrated and courageous decision to join France
and Britain in striking chemical weapons targets in Syria before dawn
Saturday drew
support and opposition
from members of Congress. Opponents have argued he should have sought
congressional authorization for the military action in Syria. They are
wrong.
President Trump’s action to attack Syria was
exceptionally well-grounded legally. Self-evident moral authority
supports using any reasonable means to protect innocents from the moral
outrage of chemical weapons.
Ahead of the attack, Vice President Mike Pence
personally notified House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Ky. He could not reach Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y. He confirmed the limited nature, objectives and duration
of the Syrian strike.
As Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other U.S.
officials made clear, America and our allies mounted a “one-off” attack
to deter any future use of chemical weapons by Syria, a prerogative
fully supported by international law.
President Trump’s thoughtful, well-planned, narrowly
drawn and superbly executed strike on Syrian chemical weapons facilities
wasted no time, ordnance or lives. Its purpose was clear, well-stated
and well-served. It should be non-controversial. Still, he is attacked.
Neither President Trump nor anyone in his
administration has suggested the onset of a long American military
combat commitment in Syria.
But U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Nikki Haley reaffirmed
America’s resolve to prevent any further use of chemical weapons. She
said Saturday at the U.N.: “I spoke to the president this morning, and
he said, ‘If the Syrian regime uses this poisonous gas again, the United
States is locked and loaded.’”
Nevertheless, leading Democrats have been vocal in demanding congressional approval for any U.S. military involvement in Syria.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2016, was quick to tweet:
“Trump’s decision to launch airstrikes against Syria without Congress’
approval is illegal. We need to stop giving presidents a blank check to
wage war. Today it’s Syria, but what’s going to stop him from bombing
Iran or North Korea next?”
Kaine’s tweet is legally inept, and all but laughable,
given that President Bill Clinton – husband of Kaine’s 2016 running
mate, Hillary Clinton – undertook a long series of air strikes in Kosovo
and elsewhere, without any congressional authorization or pretense to
getting it.
Let’s cut to the nub: The 1973 War Powers Resolution
was intended to dissuade presidents from long-duration combat
engagements and insertion of large numbers of U.S. troops. The law grew
out of a decade of U.S. combat in Vietnam. It presumes to require that
presidents get congressional approval for military combat operations if
they last more than 60 days.
Most legal scholars consider parts of the law
unconstitutional. Presidents of both parties have generally demurred. No
president has acceded to the law’s constitutionality.
That said, the interplay of executive and legislative
branches on military matters – reflecting the constitutional balance
between the Article II “commander-in-chief” powers and Congress’s
Article I “declaration of war” powers – has always been respectful since
Vietnam.
It was this time, also.
Yet some members of Congress still contend the War
Powers Resolution has been triggered, or that President Trump must
report to them before another strike.
This is nonsense. No president has been held to that
standard, effectively transmuting the commander-in-chief’s authority to
conduct limited duration, surgical strikes – consistent under
international law and with allies – into a congressional prerogative.
Even the Authorization of Use of Military Force Act of
2001 – enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – is not relevant
here. That law was intended to address, and thus authorized,
counterterrorism operations on a major scale, within set limits.
The law, which has been roundly criticized in recent
years, opened the door to attacks on state and non-state actors tied
back to the Sept. 11 attacks – but without a time limit. Whatever one
thinks of the law, our attack in Syria is not that kind of operation,
nor is any such mass deployment in Syria under discussion.
Still, critics in Congress demand President Trump
defend his Syria action and come to them for permission. They want, it
seems, to further limit the president’s already limited ability to use
the U.S. military to defend our nation, forcing him to get their
authorization for what he did and any strikes that may lie ahead.
Frankly, this is unnecessary, wildly premature at best, and somewhat embarrassing.
Congressional Democrats seem unable to stop themselves.
They must attack this president. It is now an article of faith with the
party, even if not backed up by the Constitution.
President Trump’s thoughtful, well-planned, narrowly
drawn and superbly executed strike on Syrian chemical weapons facilities
wasted no time, ordnance or lives. Its purpose was clear, well-stated
and well-served. It should be non-controversial. Still, he is attacked.
Famously, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, R-Mich., said in 1947
that “we must stop partisan politics at the water’s edge,” explaining
his support for Democratic President Harry Truman’s foreign policy.
Where has that traditional consensus gone? Democrats
senselessly pile on, joined by a small band of anti-Trump Republicans.
The specter of such internal division is odd. It must be to our allies.
Be sure of this: These frivolous claims of illegality
are watched, maybe even fanned, by our worst adversaries. Anything that
divides us helps them.
Some days, the head spins listening to official
Washington go to war with itself. In this instance, leading Democratic
critics of President Trump cannot just say “thank you and well done.”
They must, it seems, twist this legally justified,
masterfully concluded operation – one that serves the best-long term
interests of America and the world – into an act worthy of partisan
resistance.
When will this stop? When will we think again, as
Vandenberg did, about the importance of unity for national security,
national security for preserving moral values, and both as a way for
making the world a better, safer place? If not a consensus around this
event, then when?
For his extraordinary, thoughtful and entirely legal
strike on Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure – establishing a new
and higher level of credible deterrence to make the world a safer place –
President Trump deserves our thanks, not our condemnation or attempts
to limit his lawful authority as the commander-in-chief.
