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January 23, 2018
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
Re: “The right call on Syria,” (Editorial, January 23, 2018)
To the Editor:
Contrary
to your cheerleading assumption, the President lacks constitutional
authority to expand our war in Syria against ISIS to warring against
Syria itself to replace the regime of President Bashir al-Assad with an
American-approved dispensation. Congress has never authorized war
against Syria. It balked when President Barack Obama asked for that
authority in 2013 because unconvinced that Syria’s political destiny
implicated our national security.
The
Declare War Clause of the Constitution is clearer than the meaning of
the word “is.” James Madison, father of the Constitution, underscored
in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: “The
constitution supposes, what the History of all Govts demonstrates, that
the Ex. is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone
to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war
in the Legisl.” Alexander Hamilton, the most ardent proponent of
a muscular presidency, accepted that the “plain meaning” of the Declare
War Clause was that it was the “exclusive province of Congress” to take
the nation from peace to war. If President Trump believes a war
against Syria in hopes of installing democracy there is justified, he
needs to convince Congress. The Constitution’s separation of powers is a
structural Bill of Rights to protect the American people from tyranny.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan, 1981-1983, and author of American Empire Before The Fall
Phone: 202-465-8727; 703-963-4968
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