Marco Rubio -- Secretary of Many Things -- briefed the "Gang of 8" Congresscritters about the war on Iran the same day that the President gave his State of the Union address. After that, Chuck Schumer made only this statement to the press: "This is very serious. The President will have to make his case to the American people."
This is in accord with his unstated but clear theory that, having won the election in a landslide, he has a popular mandate to govern however he sees fit for the four years of the term. He sees no need to check in even about major decisions like overthrowing a longstanding enemy government (in fairness: one that has been at war with us, at least, since 1979; one that killed hundreds of Marines at the barracks bombing in Lebanon, and thousands of Americans in the Iraq war via its proxy networks).
Most or all of you are old enough to remember the alternative approach used to start the Iraq War. There was a long period of time in which George W. Bush and his administration sold America on the war, and sought Congressional authorization. Bush also claimed to believe in the 'unitary executive' theory, but he recognized limits on presidential power that Trump simply isn't interested in recognizing.
Of course, the Bush administration lied to us to sell that war. I can’t decide if this is better or worse than selling us, but with lies. No lies here! Trump just doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.
16 comments:
I get where you are coming from but I think it is important to note that there's nothing new about Trump's attitude towards Iran.
In a 1987 speech in New Hampshire, Trump suggested, in the words of The New York Times, that the United States should “attack Iran and seize some of its oil fields in retaliation for … Iran’s bullying of America.”
In 1988, Trump told The Guardian, “I’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island,” an Iranian oil hub.
In 2000, Trump complained again about how Jimmy Carter had handled Iran and said that as president he would “believe very strongly in extreme military strength.”
In 2007, Trump said, after being asked what he’d do if he were president, “First, I’d try and solve the problems in the Middle East.”
In 2011, Trump told Bill O’Reilly, “I wouldn’t let them have a nuke”—referring to Iran. He then dismissed Barack Obama as a “weak president that kisses everybody’s ass.”
In 2020, after killing General Qasem Soleimani, Trump warned that any retaliation from Iran would result in his hitting Iranian cultural sites “very fast and very hard.”
In 2024, after intelligence officials told Trump that Iran was attempting to assassinate him, Trump declared, “An attack on a former President is a Death Wish for the attacker!” (link to article at Compact)
Since the recent protests started in Iran Trump has been vocal in his assurances that support would be supplied to the protestors. I don't know that it is fair to pick one specific speech that didn't include direct comments that an operation focused on Iran was imminent and then claim he hasn't made his position well known.
I think there's also a significant difference between the operations ongoing in Iran (so far) and the invasion of Iraq beyond the consistency of Trump's rhetoric. The Iraq operation almost demanded justification because of the much wider scope contemplated, specifically the actual occupation of the country by American and coalition ground forces, and that Saddam had been much less belligerent towards the US and Israel prior to commencement of hostilities. While he was obviously a sponsor of terrorist actions, my understanding is there was no specific Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks even if there were other justifications for the operation.
I'm not quite sure where you are going with the reference to a unitary executive. As I understand it, the main point of disagreement regarding war powers is not whether the President can command the armed forces but the extent to which Congress needs to authorize specific operations.
Why forewarn the enemy?
Trying to convince the American people ahead of time. Hmm. I imagine there would immediately be a leftist counteroffensive dominating the media.
Perhaps he is tired of seeing the US lose due to internal opposition.
Raven, if the enemy wasn't forewarned by the movement of two carrier groups and half our of B2s to the region, they weren't competent enough to be much of a threat!
Christopher, I mean that GWB would have agreed with Chuck Schumer's assumption that he needed to go to the people and seek permission -- as well as authority from the people's representatives. Trump's view of his authority as executive is much broader. His notion of what the powers of a 'unitary executive' are is essentially that he's the President, and that's that. Congress only counts when there's a clear Article I issue, which apparently doesn't mean 'declaring war.' The people have already spoken, in 2024, and needn't be consulted again until 2028.
We're meant to be a self-governing people. I don't think I like the idea of a presidency that doesn't even think it matters what the people think between elections. On the other hand, I also really didn't appreciate being lied to by Colin Powell on Bush's behalf. Neither of these approaches is fully satisfactory; I'm not sure which one is worse.
Remember Congress declaring war on the Barbary pirates? Me neither, because they didn't.
And holding another nation's diplomats hostage for over a year is already a declaration of war.
I'm with Raven. Iran had every reason to know what Trump might do, but the strike opportunity didn't necessarily include an extra few days to jawbone on TV in the hopes that the extraordinary meeting of top officials wouldn't be canceled. In any case, any Americans who weren't yet familiar with why the strike made sense weren't likely to come on board if the details and the exact timing were communicated one more time in advance. Now we can judge from results.
There's a world of difference between sole authority to declare War and engaging in, even initiating, combat. The President--unitary or not--is not barred by Constitutional constraint in that regard, however suboptimal that might be. Not even the War Powers Act of 1973 applies any limit beyond the President needing to get Congressional approval to extend fighting beyond 60 days--and that limit is hazy in its legality with generations of Presidents denying its constitutionality, and with generations of Congress exploring amending it and then explicitly deciding not to.
I'm also not aware of any lies Bush the Younger told in selling his Iraq war to us and to our allies. He did rely heavily on what turned out to be badly flawed intelligence regarding Saddam's WMD, but that intel was corroborated at the time by our allies' intel, from their own sources, not just by parroting our sources.
It's certainly optimal to sell the matter to us average Americans, but in something like this, not at all in advance. The mullahs couldn't read the troop and ship movements and figure out that something was in the wind? Of course they could, but a) there's no excuse for making it any easier for them, and b) there's still the matter of tactical surprise to be protected.
Eric Hines
I understand what you are saying about consultation with Congress but that's not what I understand as the classic definition of a unitary executive which deals more the relationship between the President and Congress regarding Executive agencies than the necessity of the President to perform such consultation before exercising power clearly granted to him in the Constitution.
I'm also going to push back a bit on your example of W's attempts to gather support for the Iraq invasion. I agree W did much more selling of his actions, and I still maintain much more selling was necessary for the operation he contemplated. This graph from Pew Research shows that W was initially pretty successful (full article at Pew). But on that graph support declined pretty precipitously and he never felt it necessary to retreat from the action once the decision was made, and even doubled down via the Surge.
I know this is positive spin but I think we've grown so used to politicians who campaign in mushy platitudes and vague promises of bipartisan cooperation followed by sorrowful explanations why nothing can be changed after the election that it's just shocking to see a guy who thinks it is proper to attempt to implement the policies he campaigned on.
Did Sadam use war gas on his own countrymen? Is war gas a WMD? How could Sadam use war gas AND not have any WMDs? Please explain this to me.
"The people have already spoken, in 2024, and needn't be consulted again until 2028."
I'd argue that midterms are most often largely a referendum on the ruling party and President, especially when it's both houses and president of the same party. If the people don't like what Trump is doing that can vote against the Rs in general in the election later this year. The message would be clear enough.
Speaking of clear enough messages, as you say, the naval movements were pretty clear messaging, and so was the failed attempt at negotiations. We all knew what was likely coming. We didn't need more specifics than that, did we? People were free to complain, and if they didn't they had their chance. I see no problem with the behavior of Trump here.
There's a difference between military action expected to last years (given the planned occupation) because you really do need the people's support in elections and recruiting versus action expected to last weeks. Presidents haven't had to ask permission or sell engagements that are brief, and the element of surprise is valuable (here not that something was coming but the timing of the thing). Now, is this way of doing things right? If not, we probably need a constitutional amendment to fix it as it's been widely accepted from the beginning, as I understand it.
That said, I'm not sure what the point of Trump selling this would have been. I no longer trust demonstrations -- soooo much astroturf out there. Social media is full of bots and astroturf trolls. I guess we could mail our representatives. That would almost certainly be hacked as soon as it mattered. Dead voters would be mailing in all over. Polls could be taken, if we trust the pollsters. And so what? What percentage of roughly 140 million voters would weigh in? Would the President really know what the American people thought about it, or just what a few loudmouths thought about it?
On Iraq, the 2003 action against Iraq was not a new war. We had been at war with Iraq since Desert Storm. We had a ceasefire conditioned on Saddam getting rid of his WMDs and proving it by allowing UN weapons inspectors to check. He played shell games with the inspectors for 12 years and that was much too long. That alone was enough reason to take him down. But, the AUMF listed something like 23 different reasons for the invasion. Everyone just got hyper-focused on the WMD claims because they were the sexiest, and it made sense that he had them. Why else allow his nation to suffer crippling sanctions for 12 years in order to frustrate the weapons inspectors?
We did in fact find a stockpile of chemical artillery, though by that time it wasn't worth much. I think some terrorists used some of the shells in IEDs. The NYT reporter who reported it really wanted everyone to know that this didn't count as real WMDs because they were so old and it certainly did not exonerate Bush in any way -- Bush lied, people died! Whatever.
- Tom
Indeed, I was part of the Surge. I remember how much the populace was turning against the war at the time; and it probably contributed to the decision in 2008 to elect Barack Obama because the people wanted to change parties in the White House, even if it meant electing a a barely-known figure widely suspected at the time to be a socialist.
The media is the propaganda arm of the left.
I remember clearly the excruciating day by day reports of every casualty incurred by our troops. Drum roll, solemn voice. "today, three US soldier were killed, bring the total to XXX" 'Today, US killed in action exceeded 1000, bringing the toll to XXX".
AS SOON as the ZERO got into office, they stopped. STOPPED COLD, like turning off the tap.
Shakepeare may have had it wrong about lawyers being first.
On the Kurds, who were only his own countrymen under protest. But that wasn’t the argument being made by Secretary Powell.
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