Before Donald Trump ordered the bombing of nuclear sites in Iran, he was warned that, to quote Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the Constitution does not permit the president “to unilaterally commit an act of war” against a nation that hasn’t first struck America. After the attack, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland declared Trump’s actions “a clear violation of our Constitution—ignoring the requirement that only the Congress has the authority to declare war.” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York stated, “It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”
The judgment that neither the Constitution; nor the War Powers Resolution, a 1973 law meant to clarify and limit when the president can wage war; nor any bygone authorization to use military force, such as the one passed after 9/11, permitted the attack is one I share. But I don’t just lament the dearth of a congressional vote out of concern for constitutional law. I also fear that bypassing Congress weakens American democracy.
Recall the last time that the United States began a war this consequential: George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Prior to invading, on October 10, 2002, Bush secured an authorization to use military force from Congress by wide margins in both chambers.
Even though the Iraq invasion was a mistake—something I have long believed—American democracy was better off for those votes, and not just because the Constitution assigns the war power to Congress. Debating the matter in the House and Senate helped to educate lawmakers and the public about the arguments for and against the war and left a record of who made claims that later proved incorrect. Prior to the vote, citizens could lobby their representatives, allowing for more participation in the process. And afterward, citizens could hold members of Congress accountable for their choices, not only in the next election, but for the rest of the careers of everyone who cast a vote.
Government by the people demands opportunities to mete out such consequences. And as voters soured on Iraq, the ability to vote out members of Congress who approved the war provided a civic outlet for dissent. Just prior to the 2006 midterms, the Pew Research Center reported that “Iraq has become the central issue of the midterm elections. There is more dismay about how the U.S. military effort in Iraq is going than at any point since the war began more than three years ago. And the war is the dominant concern among the majority of voters who say they will be thinking about national issues, rather than local issues, when they cast their ballot for Congress this fall.” Pro–Iraq War senators including Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and George Allen of Virginia lost races to anti–Iraq War challengers.
In 2008, Hillary Clinton likely would have defeated Barack Obama, who spoke out against the invasion as an Illinois state senator, in the Democratic presidential primary but for her Senate vote for the Iraq War. And John McCain’s vote for the war hung over him in that general election. Later, Senator Bernie Sanders’s star would rise in part because he could point back to the vote he cast against the war. All told, voters in hundreds of electoral contests spanning years, if not decades, cast ballots in part based on information gleaned from that 2002 vote.
Yesterday, in contrast, a lame-duck president, who will never again be accountable at the ballot box, went to war with Iran. There was no deliberation and no ability for voters to lobby their congressional representatives, and voters will be unable to credit or blame members of Congress for the outcome, or at least not as fully as if all were on the record voting yea or nay.
Despite the early majorities that supported the Iraq War, its long-term effect on American politics includes growing popular aversion to wars of choice and foreign interventions. Even so, though Obama and Trump aligned themselves with popular opinion and campaigned on promises to avoid such engagements, they have now both unilaterally launched wars of choice, in Libya and Iran respectively, once they were in office.
Their unilateral actions deprived Americans of representation and the ability to hold their representatives accountable after the fact. And the trend of denying the public democratic channels to oppose war isn’t merely anathema to a self-governing republic; it is dangerous. In the long run, removing official channels for citizens to effect change can be radicalizing.
Perhaps it won’t prove so in this case, if all goes well. But if a large cohort of Americans comes to regard the attack on Iran as a blunder, how will that popular anger be channeled? The ideal answer would be, the next election. Trump has made that less possible.
