War With Iran? Who Decides?

by The New American - Oct 5, 2007

Anyone following the growing political debate about whether or not we should go to war against Iran knows that both pundits and politicians assume that the decision is the president’s to make.

But though this perception is fairly widespread, it not universal. In fact, a contrary point of view is occasionally aired by the mainstream media. Such was the case with the Fox News GOP presidential candidate debate in Durham, New Hampshire, on September 5. During the debate, moderator Brit Hume presented Congressman Ron Paul with a scenario that the next president may face regarding Iran. As described by Hume: “Its [Iran’s] nuclear program has continued to advance. UN weapons inspectors … are now saying that it appears that Iran is on the verge of being able to produce and may even be producing nuclear weapons…. Cross-border incidents in Iraq involving elements of the Revolutionary Guard … continue to increase and are a continuing problem for U.S. forces there. In addition, the threats by Iran’s leader against Israel have become more pronounced and more extreme.” Hume then asked Paul: “What do you do?”

Congressman Paul began his answer by pointing out: “For one thing, one thing I would remember very clearly is the president doesn’t have the authority to go to war — he goes to the Congress.”

But Brit Hume appeared a bit puzzled with Paul’s point that the president does not have the authority to go to war. “What do you do?” he asked the congressman. “So what do you do?” he repeated. Paul answered: “He goes to the Congress and finds out if there’s any threat to our national security.”

Under our system of government, Paul is correct. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution expressly states: “The Congress shall have power … to declare war.” This means, of course, that the president does not possess this power. But how many of our fellow citizens know this? And how many know why the Founding Fathers assigned this power to Congress and not the president?

Undoubtedly, many of our fellow citizens, including perhaps Brit Hume, do erroneously believe that the decision to go to war is the president’s to make. Many Americans, after all, have been misled by media reports that focus on whether the president will take the nation into another war, as opposed to whether the Congress will declare war. And of course, many have been misled by the fact that after World War II U.S. presidents have acted as if the decision to go to war is theirs to make, with Congress allowing this usurpation to take place.

George W. Bush is no exception. In March of 2003, he launched an offensive war against Iraq without a congressional declaration of war. The previous fall, Congress had passed a resolution that essentially authorized the president to make the decision, thereby shirking its own responsibility under the Constitution. When the president launched the invasion of Iraq the following spring, he said he was doing so to enforce UN resolutions requiring Iraq to get rid of its reputed weapons of mass destruction. But he did not cite any congressional requirement to justify his action because there was none.

Bush has even explicitly claimed that he decides when America goes to war. For instance, in his January 28, 2003 State of the Union address, less than two months before launching the war against Iraq, he claimed: “Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make.” On December 18, 2005, in an address to the nation on Iraq, he said: “As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq.”

Obviously, much of the responsibility for going into Iraq does belong to the president. After all, he made the decision. But some of the responsibility for our Iraq debacle also falls on Congress for ignoring its congressional responsibility and bowing to presidential usurpation. But that aside, there is no question that the president not only does not possess the authority to go to war but should not possess that authority.

When the Founding Fathers formed our constitutional republic, they recognized the inherent danger in giving a single person — the president or anyone else — the awesome power to make war. As James Madison, the father of our Constitution, put it in a letter to Thomas Jefferson on April 2, 1798: “The constitution supposes, what the History of all governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has, accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature.”

A few years earlier, when the great question of whether or not to ratify the Constitution was being debated, Alexander Hamilton stressed in The Federalist Papers, No. 69, that the president’s powers would be limited: “The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral … while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies — all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.”

In the following century, Abraham Lincoln recalled the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in a letter dated February 15, 1848: “Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our [1787] Convention [which drafted the Constitution] understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.”

Up to and including World War II, the Congress did declare our wars and the president acted on that authority. Beginning with the Korean War, however, our wars have not been declared. And a constitutional principle that was once widely understood has now been largely forgotten.

Of course, there are those who at least acknowledge that the power to declare war is in the Constitution, but who claim that this power is not the same as the power to make war. They overlook a very important fact that was pointed out by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in its February 9, 1972 Report on War Powers: “The Constitutional Convention at first proposed to give Congress the power to ‘make’ war but changed this to ‘declare’ war, not, however, because it was desired to enlarge Presidential power but in order to permit the President to take action to repel sudden attacks.” Put simply, the congressional power to declare war is tantamount to the power to make war, and the Founders opted for the word “declare” to allow the president to respond immediately to sudden attacks without violating the Constitution.

There are also those who dismiss the congressional power to declare war by claiming that it is anachronistic. But how they’re able to make such a claim defies reason. Has human nature changed since the 18th century when the Constitution was drafted? Was it folly then to entrust a president with the powers of a king, but wise to do so now?

Anyone who sincerely believes this should take a look at the consequences of the presidential usurpation of power, particularly the power to send the nation to war — and should also consider how much worse the consequences could become if the usurpations are allowed to continue.

Which brings us to the looming specter of war with Iran. Is it wisdom or folly to allow President Bush to make this decision? Hasn’t the Iraq debacle — from the false intelligence regarding WMDs, to use of American troops to quell what has become a civil war — shown that President Bush must not be allowed to make any such decision?

But neither should any other president! Any decision regarding going to war — against Iran, or against any other country — must be made by Congress. But even with Congress making the decision, there is no justification whatsoever for launching a so-called pre-emptive war against any country that has not attacked us. We must never go to war except in defense of our country.