Perhaps Mark Esper would feel more at home in China, or even Iran.
President Trump’s defense secretary seems to expect, or at least desire, obeisance from the legislative branch. According to angry senators, Esper warned this week that a public Senate debate over our military conflict with Iran could bolster the enemy and harm our troops.
The Defense Department denies issuing such a command. Esper, according to a spokesman, merely “stated a concern about how such a debate would be interpreted by the force.”
Oh! He didn’t tell them not to debate or exercise its prerogative over matters of war; he just stated that such a debate would hurt the troops!
This isn’t out of the ordinary, of course — the executive branch always tries to push the legislative branch out of the way, especially on war. But it’s still authoritarian garbage.
For starters, the Senate is supposed to debate.
It is, in fact, crucial for the republic that the Senate debates. Esper is hardly the main enemy of senatorial debates — Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell hold that title. A country without a deliberative, debating senate is a country with a more sclerotic democracy. Advocates of a policy — particularly war — should be required to publicly make their case and defend it against criticisms before enacting the policy.
And Congress is absolutely supposed to call the shots when it comes to war.
This sounds archaic, but it is in Congress, and not in the presidency, where war-making power resides. Trump and Esper have the duty to carry out and execute the wars that Congress declares and to wield the force that Congress authorizes.
It’s in plain letters in the Constitution. Congress has the power to declare war. It’s right there in Article I, Section 8. The War Powers Resolution makes it clear that the president can take brief defensive actions without prior approval.
There’s a strong case to be made that Trump had authority for the missile strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. But even so, the Pentagon and the White House have an obligation to seek congressional approval if they plan to make future attacks on Iranian forces.
The executive’s power to make war without congressional authorization is, without a doubt, limited to emergency actions. If the White House and the military are currently planning and prepping for actions against Iranian forces — or even just contingencies — that means they know ahead of time what they will or might do. That means they have time to ask Congress for permission. That means they ought to do so, especially since a battle against Iranian or Iran-allied forces is only tangentially related to existing Authorizations of Use of Military Force.
In this light, the Democratic resolution that passed the House seems like a proper assertion of congressional authority. It doesn’t stop Trump from striking Iranian forces. It requires him to get congressional approval first. It clarifies that a war with Iran — even a little one — is not part of the previously authorized wars in Iraq or against al Qaeda.
It’s natural the administration wouldn’t like these checks on its power. That’s exactly why the Constitution included these checks. That’s one important difference between America on one hand and China or Iran on the other.
