As Americans head back to work this morning, most people are discussing the U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday. The mission appears to have been a smashing success, devastating Iran’s capabilities and advancing the ultimate goal of a safer world. The U.S. is the only nation in the world with the bunker-busting bombs necessary, and we pulled the trigger to drop them.
Not every American is cheering.
A few Democrats are caterwauling to high heaven that President Donald Trump was the first U.S. president to fight back against the radical Islamic fanatics who took over Tehran in 1979 and began killing Americans.
“The President ignored the Constitution by unilaterally engaging our military without Congressional authorization,” fussed Representative Nancy Pelosi.
“The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” wrote Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on X. “He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”
Democrat Congressman Sean Casten agreed, calling the strikes an “unambiguous impeachable offense.”
Yeah, that’s what we need — a third bogus impeachment of Trump.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took a slightly more nuanced approach.
“No president,” huffed Schumer, “should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into something as consequential as war with erratic threats and no strategy.”
The president “failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East,” Jeffries said in a statement, adding, “Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action.”
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, call your respective offices. Both presidents — with the backing of Hillary Clinton — launched comparable military strikes on multiple nations that didn’t pose a fraction of the threat Iran does, without so much as a raised eyebrow from their fellow Democrats. In fact, Pelosi vigorously defended both of them. Remember Hillary’s “We came, we saw, he died” taunt after Obama unilaterally took out Moammar Gadhafi, leaving a failed state in Libya?
Various Obama administration alumni, like nuclear deal architect Ben Rhodes, joined the chorus of hypocritical complainers.
It would be a welcome development if Democrats genuinely began caring about the Constitution, but this is all a phony charade for political points.
One Democrat has his head on straight, and that is, ironically, the one recovering from a severe stroke. Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman has been on the right side of the Israel/Hamas war from the start, and he sees clearly that Iran’s mullahs represent a real threat made exponentially worse by the acquisition of nuclear weapons. “As I’ve long maintained, this was the correct move by @POTUS,” Fetterman said on X. “Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities. I’m grateful for and salute the finest military in the world.”
Now that several Democrats have had their say, what’s the proper view of the constitutional authority here?
“This is not Constitutional,” said Representative Thomas Massie. Trump responded by promising to back a primary challenge against the Kentucky Republican.
Yet Massie is arguing that the Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war for a president to conduct war actions. He isn’t wrong — and unlike the Democrats, he actually does care about the Constitution — but that has not been the functional arrangement since President Harry Truman and the Korean War.
In our nation’s history, there have been only 11 congressional declarations of war. Ever since 1950, presidents have been happy to bypass Congress or negotiate lesser authorizations, and, as with so many other things, congressmen have been quite pleased to pass the buck and avoid responsibility for making tough decisions. When you’re not directly responsible for something, it’s easier to wait and see what happens before taking a side when campaigning back home. Thus, 125 times since Korea, presidents have unilaterally launched military strikes.
In the case of Iran, Trump invoked the War Powers Act, under which he officially notified Congress. With considerable constitutional controversy, the law cedes a great deal of congressional authority regarding acts of war to the president. Trump could also arguably claim authority from the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which empowers the president to conduct military operations against radical Islamic terrorists, of which Iran is the chief sponsor.
As for Congress, none of the Democrats vehemently objecting to Trump’s action actually want to vote to declare war on Iran. Either they oppose it for political reasons, or they don’t want to be seen as supporting it for political reasons. Given the Obama-Biden appeasement of Iran, actually doing something to stop the nation’s nuclear weapons program is not a Democrat objective. That’s why several Democrats (and Massie) are working on a War Powers Resolution to demand that Trump cease and desist.
For now, there’s a lot of dust to settle — real dust in Iran and political dust here in the U.S. Time will tell what things look like in Tehran and Washington soon enough.
Follow Nate Jackson on X/Twitter.
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