U.S forces, by Presidential directive, are stacking up within striking distance of Iran -- and look, he can do that, shuffle the U. S. military around on U.S. soil, the open sea and (by agreement) the territory of our allies. The job includes "Commander in Chief," after all.
What no President can do -- Republican, Democrat, Whig or George Washington standing clear of parties in disgust -- is start or declare a war. That's up to Congress, the majority of whose members have to worry about re-election in the very near term, whose consensus contains the aggregate wisdom of 535 men and women (stop laughing).
Of course you wouldn't know that from the way our current President is talking about it, as he opens the first meeting of his "Board of Peace." Nope, he says we'll know his plans for using armed forces against Iran in a week or ten days.
That ain't how it works. I'm sure my comment filters will get a few "Nuh-unh, he can, too, and besides [other President] did it." I don't care. The ones who have pulled that kind of trick in the past were also in the wrong, and the incumbent has already broken the rules by kidnapping a foreign head of state in a military incursion. It doesn't matter that the guy they grabbed was a bad guy; it doesn't matter if he was helping out drug smugglers, masterminding the whole drug-gang show or, despite being a bloody-handed autocrat busy running his country into the ground, had stood well clear of the whole dope thing: other countries still aren't supposed to send soldiers in and grab him. Ya don't do it. There is -- well, there was -- a rules-based international order; there are ways to line up a criminal leader for arrest and trial (and yes, they're pretty toothless as long as he or she is careful where they go visiting) but they do not include TV plots from Mission: Impossible or The A-Team.
Russia, the smallest and weakest of what passes for a Great Power these days -- and they wouldn't even be one, without the nuke in their teeth and the mad gleam in their eye -- has been hacking away at the notion of having rules for the game ever since they grabbed the Crimean peninsula. Red China would like to (little matter of Taiwan), but all their neighbors are watching. Our President shouldn't be picking up an axe and joining in.
But he has been and he still is. In a better timeline, Congress would be straining at the reins, digging its heels like a mule. This Congress is more like a Pomeranian purse-dog: yappy and occasionally it makes a smelly little mess in there, but mostly it's just riding along.
Someone suggested to me that the principal cause of America's political woes is not bad presidents, or bad decisions by the Supreme Court, it's the permanent weakness and cowardice of Congress.
ReplyDeleteWhy not all three?
DeleteAll governments are compromises. The silly notion that if we fix this one thing, it'll all come up roses, well, no. A representative democracy is shot through with weak points, and stumbles from crisis to crisis, crash to crash. It's one of the best systems humans have come up with, but that just means it sucks ;ess than the alternatives.
Right now, it's sucking pretty bad in the U.S. Maybe we can fix it. Maybe it will break. I hope it doesn't break. I'm voting as hard as I can.
The point and strength of Representative Democracy is that we can pick our government, and change them out as needed. We're not stuck with whatever spawn of the last guy who happens to be the oldest. Nor do we have an official body of official nepobabies that says what's what.
DeleteSadly, the people who seem to proclaim their love of the Document that has become the global gold standard for Representative Democracy are supporting a bunch of guys that want to return us to the sort of nepobaby system their ancestors fled a few generations back.
"What no President can do -- Republican, Democrat, Whig or George Washington standing clear of parties in disgust -- is start or declare a war."
ReplyDeleteThis one needs to be reminded in no uncertain terms! Starting ASAP!