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February 9, 2007
In an article in the Atlantic entitled Where Congress Can Draw the Line James Fallows expresses his worries that the Bush Administration may soon find an excuse to attack Iran. He offers this analysis:
If we could trust the Administration’s ability to judge America’s rational self-interest, there would be no need to constrain its threatening gestures toward Iran. Everyone would understand that this was part of the negotiation process; no one would worry that the Administration would finally take a step as self-destructive as beginning or inviting a war.
Unfortunately, this is not the case:
But no one can any longer trust the Administration to recognize and defend America’s rational self-interest — not when the President says he will carry out a policy even if opposed by everyone except his wife and dog, not when the Vice President refuses to concede any mistake or misjudgment in the handling of Iraq. According to the constitutional chain of command, those two men literally have the power to order a strike that would be disastrous for their nation. The Congress has no official way to prevent them from doing so — it is interesting, and alarming, to think that in practice the safety valve might be the professional military, trained to revere the chain of command but faced with what its members would recognize as ruinous instructions.
As Fallows recognizes, the US constitutional system cannot afford this particular safety valve. The military must follow civilian orders. The way out of the danger is not to look to the military to discipline the President. Congress must reassert civilian control over over the Presidency through its Article I, section 8 powers.
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