Bowing to overwhelming public opinion, President Obama has decided to bring the case for a new war before Congress. He made the announcement amidst a news dump, but it could well be an historic moment whose memory outlasts Obamacare. Here are a few reasons why, listed in no particular order.
1) Obama no longer calls the shots on Syria. Sure, he claims that he reserves the power to go it alone, at least in principle, but he isn’t fooling anyone. A Congressional resolution against a war is, under the War Powers Act, sufficient to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces from any foreign conflict, to say nothing of the horrible politics of waging a war that Congress has weighed in against. So with respect to Syria, Obama has simply handed the keys to Congress.
2) Obama has conceded presidential power in general. This announcement wasn’t made in the near-secrecy of the dead Labor Day weekend for nothing. Given the White House leaks prior to the British Parliament’s vote against war, it’s pretty obvious that Obama was spooked out of making war all on his own. He senses (correctly, I believe) that he lacks the political capital to do anything without Congressional support.
By promising to go to Congress, where the result is anything but clear at this point, he has weakened the presidency — and really, that may be the single greatest and most historic accomplishment of his presidency so far. Obama’s unilateralism on other issues has justly brought upon him accusations of lawlessness. Now, he has created a precedent that will surely bind Republican presidents and perhaps Democratic ones as well.
3) The coming vote in Congress will be one of the most important since Vietnam: If Congress is sufficiently aggressive in reclaiming its constitutional prerogatives, it has a real chance of restoring its rightful place in the Constitutional system with respect to the final up-or-down decision on warmaking. If members of Congress are too timid and prefer to avoid personal responsibility, then this moment will be wasted. Kudos to Speaker Boehner if the war resolution that reaches the House floor (whether it passes or not) at least contains a finding that congressional approval is necessary for presidents seeking to engage in conflicts overseas — which happens to be the letter of both the law and the Constitution, as well as the explicit belief of our Founding Fathers.
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