Hey, remember that time I wrote a post and said that President Bush has absolutely no shame? Well, funny story, as it turns out I was right. Like, very right. Tragically, depressingly, entirely right.
You see, one of the nice things that Congress gets to do is approve international treaties. The Treaty Clause is sitting in Article 2 of the United States Constitution and it reads:
[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur…
Now according to Ye Old Wikipedia, there’s more than just “treaties”, there’s also agreements. The President doesn’t always need Congress’s approval according to that writeup, but only in cases that aren’t long-term and which don’t fall under Congress’s authority.
Armed with this knowledge, check this out: the Bush administration is re-wording an agreement with Iraq that would exclude Congress.
Additionally, the Bush administration has consistently insisted that it doesn’t need congressional approval for the deal. Yet it appears that this stance was nothing more than posturing, as officials are now reworking the agreement with new language in order to actually avoid going before Congress:
U.S. and Iraqi officials negotiating long-term security agreements have reworded a proposed White House commitment to defend Iraq against foreign aggression in an effort to avoid submitting the deal for congressional approval, Iraq’s foreign minister said yesterday.
The alternative under discussion will pledge U.S. forces to “help Iraqi security forces to defend themselves,” rather than a U.S. promise to defend Iraq, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said. Although “it’s the other way around,” he said, “the meaning is the same, almost.”
Going back to our Wiki article, there’s this:
In Missouri v. Holland, the Supreme Court ruled that the power to make treaties under the U.S. Constitution is a power separate from the other enumerated powers of the federal government, and hence the federal government can use treaties to legislate in areas which would otherwise fall within the exclusive authority of the states. By contrast, a congressional-executive agreement can only cover matters which the Constitution explicitly places within the powers of Congress and the President.[1] Likewise, a sole-executive agreement can only cover matters within the President’s authority or matters in which Congress has delegated authority to the President.
Okay then. Is this entirely within the President’s authority? After all, we’re talking about an extension of the use of military force, something that needed Congress’s authority in the first place. This isn’t the kinda thing that the President can just do on his own. Oh but wait a minute, we have to go back to the original Iraq War Resolution.
(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to–
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
So it seems that they may be able to make the argument that, as Congress handed him the power to run this thing “as he determines”, that means he doesn’t need their approval.
Congratulations, Congress. If this goes down the way it looks like it might, you’ve got no one to blame but yourselves.
Hanlon\'s Razor 