Congress and Syria

According to The Washington Post, the president told chief of staff Denis McDonough that there were two reasons why he abruptly decided to seek congressional authorization for a military strike on Syria.

He wanted there to be political accountability — lawmakers from both parties, he believed, should be on the record in support or against the war.

Obama told advisers that congressional support, far from certain, given the animosity that extends the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, would ultimately strengthen support for the war and perhaps protect public opinion for a sustained operation.

The other reason? Unlike the U.S.-led military operation in Libya in 2011 — which was supported by the U.N. Security Council and the Arab League — the United States did not have the same level of international backing.

Obama’s proposal to invite Congress dominated the Friday discussion in the Oval Office. He had consulted almost no one about his idea. In the end, the president made clear he wanted Congress to share in the responsibility for what happens in Syria.

As one aide put it, “We don’t want them to have their cake and eat it, too.”

Press Conference Errors

During press conferences, presidents sometimes make mistakes.  President Obama may have made a couple yesterday.  At Politico, Edward-Isaac Dovere writes:

“If the concern was that somehow this was the only way to get this information out to the public, I signed an executive order well before Mr. Snowden leaked this information that provided whistle-blower protection to the intelligence community for the first time,” Obama said. “What we’ve seen is information come out in drips and in drabs, sometimes coming out sideways. Once the information is out, the administration comes in, tries to correct the record. But by that time, it’s too late or we’ve moved on.”

Never mind that there’s an open question of whether Snowden, as a government contractor and not a direct government employee, would have been subject to those protections.

Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project told POLITICO that he’d asked the White House counsel to justify Obama’s assertion, first made in his interview with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show on Tuesday, and they said they’d decided to interpret the presidential policy directive on whistleblowers.

“As written, though, it only bans actions by government employees, leaving contractor whistleblowers vulnerable to retaliation initiated by the contractor itself,” Devine said. “The White House lawyer said they are looking for a way to enforce that scenario.”

Mike Levine reports at ABC:

"[W]e have informed, I think, the public that there's a sealed [Benghazi] indictment," the president responded. "It's sealed for a reason. But we are intent on capturing those who carried out this attack, and we're going to stay on it until we get them."

That marked the only official confirmation so far of a sealed indictment in the Benghazi case. For days, officials across the law enforcement and intelligence communities have refused to publicly confirm reports of a sealed indictment.

After all, according to federal law, [strictly speaking, the federal rules of criminal procedure] "no person may disclose [a sealed] indictment's existence," and a "knowing violation … may be punished as a contempt of court." Contempt of court carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called the president's disclosure "crazy."

"Doesn't the law apply to the president too?" the official asked, and then jokingly added, "I guess he could pardon himself."

In fact, though, the president is effectively immune from breaking the law when it comes to a sealed indictment, according to a former prosecutor in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section

"The [president], by virtue of his position, can't violate any non-disclosure/confidentiality rule," said Peter Zeidenberg, now in private practice in Washington. "One of the perks of being the head of the executive branch: Nothing he says is technically a leak. If he does it, it is authorized."

However, Zeidenberg acknowledged "an argument could be made that a sealed matter can only be unsealed by a court."

A Very Bad Day for the President

What's the one thing that the Obama administration could do that would alienate the entire press corps?  Brendan Sasso and Jordy Yager write at The Hill:

Federal prosecutors secretly obtained two months' worth of telephone records of Associated Press journalists in what the news agency described Monday as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion.”

The Justice Department notified the AP on Friday that it had subpoenaed the records, which included more than 20 office, cellphone and home phone lines. The lines include the general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery.

Juliet Eilperin and Zachary Goldfarb write at The Washington Post:

Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
...
Moreover, details of the IRS’s efforts to target conservative groups reached the highest levels of the agency in May 2012, far earlier than has been disclosed, according to Republican congressional aides briefed by the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration ­(TIGTA) on the details of their reviews.

 Pro Publica discloses:

The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year.

The IRS did not respond to requests Monday following up about that release, and whether it had determined how the applications were sent to ProPublica.

In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

The Washington Post gives the president four Pinocchios for his statement on Benghazi:

During the campaign, the president could just get away with claiming he said “act of terror,” since he did use those words — though not in the way he often claimed. It seemed like a bit of after-the-fact spin, but those were his actual words — to the surprise of Mitt Romney in the debate.

But the president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now.

Indeed, the initial unedited talking points did not call it an act of terrorism. Instead of pretending the right words were uttered, it would be far better to acknowledge that he was echoing what the intelligence community believed at the time--and that the administration’s phrasing could have been clearer and more forthright from the start.

International Views of US Leadership

In our chapter on national security and foreign policy, we examine international views of the United States.  Gallup reports some new data:

The image of U.S. leadership worldwide was weaker during President Barack Obama's fourth year in office than at any point during his first administration. Median approval of U.S. leadership across 130 countries stood at 41% in 2012, down measurably from 49% approval in Obama's first year. Despite these poorer scores, approval ratings for the most part remain stronger than they were at the end of the last Bush administration.

This shift suggests that the president and the new secretary of state may not find global audiences as receptive to the U.S. agenda as they have in the past. In fact, they may even find even once-warm audiences increasingly critical. The image of U.S. leadership continued to be the strongest worldwide in Africa in 2012, bolstered by strong majority approval in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this strong support in the subcontinent, which first showed signs of weakening in 2011, waned more in 2012.

U.S. leadership remains far less popular in North Africa, except in Libya, where U.S. support for the revolution may have generated an almost unprecedented level of goodwill toward America. A majority of Libyans (54%) surveyed before the attack in Benghazi approved of U.S. leadership in 2012. In Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt, no more than one-third approved and ratings remained mostly flat. Algerian approval of U.S. leadership is down slightly since 2011, dropping from 37% to 30%.

Benghazi

The State Department's Accountability Review Board has reported on the killings in Benghazi (emphasis added):

1. The attacks were security related, involving arson, small arms and machine gun fire, and the use of RPGs, grenades, and mortars against U.S. personnel at two separate facilities – the SMC and the Annex – and en route between them. Responsibility for the tragic loss of life, injuries, and damage to U.S. facilities and property rests solely and completely with the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks. The Board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity. 

2. Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department (the “Department”) resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.

... 

3. Notwithstanding the proper implementation of security systems and procedures and remarkable heroism shown by American personnel, those systems and the Libyan response fell short in the face of a series of attacks that began with the sudden penetration of the Special Mission compound by dozens of armed attackers.

... 

 4. The Board found that intelligence provided no immediate, specific tactical warning of the September 11 attacks. Known gaps existed in the intelligence community’s understanding of extremist militias in Libya and the potential threat they posed to U.S. interests, although some threats were known to exist.

5. The Board found that certain senior State Department officials within two bureaus demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability in their responses to security concerns posed by Special Mission Benghazi, given the deteriorating threat environment and the lack of reliable host government protection. However, the Board did not find reasonable cause to determine that any individual U.S. government employee breached his or her duty.

Gaps in Libya Coverage

The American mass media have cut back on foreign correspondents, so their coverage of international affairs is generally much poorer than it once was. (And no, social media are not an adequate substitute.) Washington Post ombudsman Patrick B. Pexton faults the paper's coverage of the Libya attack:

The Post’s coverage of the Libya attack was good early and good late, but there was an unfortunate gap in the middle — partly but not completely explained by personnel issues — that made it look like The Post was shying away from a full-court press to find out what the Obama administration knew and whether it was giving a true portrayal of the attack.
...
Reporting on the Libya attack was either buried in the overall protest stories or put on pages deep inside the A section. And it was thin.

One mitigating circumstance helps explain some of the gap: The Post had no North Africa reporter on Sept. 11. [emphasis added] [Michael] Birnbaum was in Cairo filling in while a new correspondent, Abigail Hauslohner, was in Washington getting new-employee training. She could not get a visa to Libya until Sept. 18, and she arrived in Benghazi on Sept. 19. Once on the ground, she did excellent work profiling the militias probably responsible for the attack.

All during this period, CNN, Fox News and other media outlets in Washington were hammering away at whether the Obama administration was being honest about what it knew and whether the murders were a planned terrorist attack. The Post published some of this in its Sept. 13 story but did not develop it further.

Social Media and the Mideast Crisis

Social media have played a central part in the unfolding crisis in the Mideast.  Politico reports:

The Internet tools of the Arab Spring have become the weapons of a new Arabian nightmare playing out at American diplomatic missions across North Africa and the Middle East.

Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube that spread an obscure movie trailer depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad in offensive ways are facing a clamp-down from governments and even Internet companies in some cases.

Google-owned YouTube has blocked access to the video from inside Libya and Egypt. President Hamid Karzai has set up a firewall to prevent Afghans from viewing YouTube videos at all. And the U.S. Embassy in Cairo deleted its own tweets about the video after they became part of the political debate in the American presidential election.

The Atlantic reports:

American diplomat Larry Schwartz has gotten himself into some trouble this week. A senior public affairs officer at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Schwartz on Tuesday wrote a much-discussed memo stating that the embassy "condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims," as well as several defensive tweets, some of which he later deleted. For example: "This morning's condemnation (issued before protests began) still stands. As does condemnation of unjustified breach of the Embassy." Romney condemned the "apology," as he described it, and the White House quickly disavowed the memo.

State Department officials back in Washington, it turns out, had reviewed the memo and explicitly told Schwartz not to publish it, which he did anyway. "Frankly, people here did not understand it," a State Department official told Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin. "The statement was just tone deaf. It didn't provide adequate balance. We thought the references to the 9/11 attacks were inappropriate, and we strongly advised against the kind of language that talked about 'continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.'"

Tuesday's controversial tweets from the @USEmbassyCairo account, which Schwartz reportedly runs, were unusually provocative and political but otherwise generally consistent with the feed's noticeably conversational tone. American embassies across the globe have taken to Twitter over the last year or two, an impressive soft power outreach to citizens of foreign countries, but the Cairo feed has stood out. Other feeds, even when they tweet frequently, tend to take the staid tone of official diplomacy, tweeting press releases, quotes from U.S. officials, and relevant headlines. 

The Washington Post reports:

The White House asked YouTube on Tuesday to review an anti-Muslim film posted to the site that has been blamed for igniting the violent protests this week in the Middle East.

Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, said the White House has “reached out to YouTube to call the video to their attention and ask them to review whether it violates their terms of use.”

However, the video remained on the site as of Friday afternoon, and it is posted many other places on the Internet.

Messages to YouTube, and Google, which owns the site, were not immediately returned Friday. On Wednesday, a YouTube spokesperson said the video “is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.”

US v. Qadhafi

The president has issued a statement:

Tonight, the momentum against the Qadhafi regime has reached a tipping point. Tripoli is slipping from the grasp of a tyrant. The Qadhafi regime is showing signs of collapsing. The people of Libya are showing that the universal pursuit of dignity and freedom is far stronger than the iron fist of a dictator.

The surest way for the bloodshed to end is simple: Moammar Qadhafi and his regime need to recognize that their rule has come to an end. Qadhafi needs to acknowledge the reality that he no longer controls Libya. He needs to relinquish power once and for all. Meanwhile, the United States has recognized the Transitional National Council as the legitimate governing authority in Libya. At this pivotal and historic time, the TNC should continue to demonstrate the leadership that is necessary to steer the country through a transition by respecting the rights of the people of Libya, avoiding civilian casualties, protecting the institutions of the Libyan state, and pursuing a transition to democracy that is just and inclusive for all of the people of Libya. A season of conflict must lead to one of peace.

The future of Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people. Going forward, the United States will continue to stay in close coordination with the TNC. We will continue to insist that the basic rights of the Libyan people are respected. And we will continue to work with our allies and partners in the international community to protect the people of Libya, and to support a peaceful transition to democracy.

The United States has been in conflict with the regime in Libya for more than 25 years. In 1986, President Reagan launched air strikes:

Libya Setbacks for the President

Gallup reports:

Americans are more likely to say they disapprove than approve of the U.S. military action in Libya. That represents a shift from three months ago, just after the mission began, when approval exceeded disapproval.

The results are based on a Gallup poll conducted June 22. The House of Representatives is set to vote on resolutions that would limit the U.S. role in Libya, partly because of questions about whether the mission violates the War Powers Act since President Obama did not obtain congressional authorization for it. The U.S. sent forces to Libya in March as part of a multinational force to protect rebels in that country from attacks by Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.

Democrats are the only political group to show more support for than opposition to the U.S. involvement. Independents are the most likely to show opposition, with a majority disapproving.

Republicans' opinions have changed the most since March, moving to 39% approval from 57%. This likely reflects increased criticism of the mission's legality and cost from some Republican congressional leaders and presidential candidates. Independents' views have become slightly more negative over the last three months, while Democrats' opinions have been largely stable.

The poll sought to explore Americans' reasons for opposition to the operation by asking those who disapprove whether they disagree with the substance of the policy or with how it was executed. Most who disapprove, 64%, do so because they do not think the U.S. should be in Libya at all. Just under a third, 29%, disapprove because they do not think the president obtained the necessary approval from Congress to conduct the operation.

Politico reports:

The House delivered a surprising split decision on Libya Friday: Voting against authorizing the use of American forces there and then, an hour later, refusing to limit funding for the mission.

In essence, the House decided that it will neither endorse nor totally reject American intervention in Libya.

It appears that a last-minute White House lobbying effort to stave off Democratic defections worked — at least on the spending-limitation bill. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked House Democrats to back their president in a closed-door meeting in the Capitol on Thursday, and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon summoned a small group of liberals to the Situation Room at 7 a.m. Friday for a classified briefing that may have influenced a handful of votes.

Still, the House rejection of a one-year authorization of the use of force in Libya earlier Friday represented the most serious congressional challenge to the president’s war-making authority in more than a decade. It was a symbolic vote, but one that was felt on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

H J RES 68 RECORDED VOTE 24-Jun-2011 12:16 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: Authorizing the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya

	Ayes	Noes	PRES	NV
Republican	8	225		6
Democratic	115	70		7
Independent
TOTALS	123	295		13

H R 2278 RECORDED VOTE 24-Jun-2011 2:00 PM

QUESTION: On Passage

BILL TITLE: To limit the use of funds appropriated to the Department of Defense for United States Armed Forces in support of North Atlantic Treaty Organization Operation Unified Protector with respect to Libya, unless otherwise specifically authorized by law

	Ayes	Noes	PRES	NV
Republican	144	89		6
Democratic	36	149		7
Independent
TOTALS	180	238		13

"Hostilities" and the War Powers Act

The New York Times reports:

President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.

But Mr. Obama decided instead to adopt the legal analysis of several other senior members of his legal team — including the White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department legal adviser, Harold H. Koh — who argued that the United States military’s activities fell short of “hostilities.” Under that view, Mr. Obama needed no permission from Congress to continue the mission unchanged.

Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch.

Yale law professor Jack Balkin blogs that the OLC is not a constitutional body and presidents may legally set up deliberative procedures as they see fit.

However, there are good reasons why these practices and customs were implemented. They were designed to prevent Presidents from treating their lawyers like so many guests at a cocktail party that they can causally survey in order to pick out their friends. These procedures exist because there is almost always a prominent and skillful lawyer in the Administration who will tell the President pretty much what he wants to hear.

The OLC's procedures are designed to prevent precisely this sort of cherry picking. If the President can simply canvas the opinions of enough such lawyers he is not restrained very much by the law. Indeed, it is particularly relevant here that one of the lawyers who supported the President's position on Libya is the White House Counsel. The White House Counsel's office, as it has developed over time, is much closer to the political arm of the President's operations, and much much less likely ever to cross the President. White House Counsels who do not facilitate the President's political goals do not remain long as White House Counsels. Not surprisingly, the White House Counsel's office does not have the same academic or judicious traditions of the OLC. Whether or not one thinks that the OLC is likely to say yes to the President simply because it sits in the Justice Department, the White House Counsel's office is likely to be ten times more flexible.

The Washington Post follows up:

On Saturday, a spokesman for Boehner said the New York Times report “reinforces the need for the White House to answer the questions that Congress and the American people have about our involvement in Libya.”

But spokesman Michael Steel was noncommittal about Boehner’s next move. “That’s something we’ll discuss” with GOP legislators, he said.

The two party leaders in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were not available for comment on Libya on Saturday.

One option would be to hold a vote to approve or disapprove of the Libyan campaign, even if Obama has said Congress’s approval isn’t necessary.

Last week, two of Obama’s strongest allies on Libya — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) — said they wanted such a vote. Durbin last week teamed with Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and introduced a resolution that would support the president’s Libyan actions but would set an end date of Dec. 30 and bar the introduction of U.S. ground troops, something Obama has said repeatedly he does not plan to do.

Another would be to seek to cut off funding for the operation. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) said Saturday that he would introduce such a measure this week, when the House plans to consider a bill to fund the Pentagon.

That has happened before. In 1973, for instance, after a cease-fire had been agreed to in Vietnam, Congress voted to prohibit money being used to reintroduce troops into Southeast Asia.

In many cases, Congress has been leery about withdrawing money for troops already in harm’s way. That might still be true here, even though U.S. forces are not on the ground in Libya and face relatively little danger in the air.

Isolationism?

The Pew Research Center reports:

In their first major presidential debate June 13, the Republican candidates sketched out a cautious approach to U.S. global engagement that would represent a departure from the policies of the Bush administration. Yet their ideas are very much in tune with the evolving views of the GOP base.

In the Pew Research Center’s political typology survey, released May 4, majorities in every partisan group –including 55% of conservative Republicans – said the U.S. “should pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems here at home.”

In December 2004, conservative Republicans had been the only group in which a majority had expressed the opposing view – 58% said “it is best for the future of our country to be active in world affairs.”

The proportion of conservative Republicans supporting U.S. activism in world affairs has fallen by 19 points to 39%. Since 2004, liberal Democrats and independents also have become less supportive of U.S. global engagement, but the change has been most dramatic among conservatives.

...

Republicans have become less supportive of U.S. global engagement, but they continue to favor a muscular approach to national security. In the political typology survey, half of Republicans (50%) supported the Reagan-era concept of “peace through strength,” while 38% said “good diplomacy is the best way to ensure peace.”

By comparison, just 29% of independents and 22% of Democrats said peace is best ensured through military strength. These views are little changed from recent years.

From an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll:

Q36 The President has announced that he plans to begin reducing American troop levels in Afghanistan in July 2011. Which of these statements comes closest to your point of view on this? (ROTATE TOP-TO-BOTTOM,

BOTTOM-TO-TOP)

Statement A: The troops should be removed now.

Statement B: The troops should be removed on the timetable of July 2011.

Statement C: The troops should be removed depending upon the military conditions in July 2011.

Statement D: The troops should only be removed after the Afghan government has stabilized and the Taliban has been defeated.

................................................................................................6/11 1/11 8/26-30/10

A/Removed now ..................................................................... 23...... 23......... 18

B/Removed on this timetable .................................................. 24 .......21........16

C/Removed depending on military conditions ........................ 37........34........ 37

D/Removed after gov’t stabilized and Taliban defeated.... ........15 ....... 21........ 25

Not sure .......................................................................... ........1.......... 1.......... 4

In August 2010, the statement read “…depending upon the military conditions in 2011”

Jonah Goldberg writes:

Again, my objection is solely to the word “isolationist.” ...[T]he term is loaded with baggage, hence it tends to distort debates rather than edify them.

For instance, there were far more liberal isolationists than liberal historians and pundits would have people think. They included John Dewey, Charles Beard, Joseph Kennedy and his sons, various writers for the liberal New Republic, et al. Meanwhile many of the most famous “isolationists” were far more willing to engage the world than the term suggests. Henry Cabot Lodge and the Republicans who rejected the Treaty of Versailles were not remotely isolationist (I could go into all that, but it gets complicated). Ron Paul likes to invoke Senator Robert Taft’s opposition to NATO as proof of a longstanding tradition of isolationism in the GOP. He always leaves out the fact that Taft supported the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, promised “100 percent support for the Chinese National government on Formosa,” and favored keeping six divisions in Europe, at least until the Europeans could defend themselves. That’s not exactly Fortress America talk.

Using the term isolationist as if it didn’t conjure these old debates and battles is a mistake. It offends those who simply disagree with specific policies while it encourages those who would like to claim that Isolationism—with a capital I—is once again a thriving or at least viable political movement. Do we really want Pat Buchanan out there using these polls as proof that it’s time for him to revive his America First schtick?

The American people may be wrong in their priorities, it’s happened before. And Mitt Romney and others may be wrong in theirs. But wrong is not synonymous with isolationism.

Where Is the Protest?

Although the United States has ended its direct combat role in Iraq, it maintains thousands of troops there, and a Monday rocket attack killed five of them. Americans are fighting in Afghanistan. And the United States is taking part in NATO operations against Libya, despite serious legal questions.

Our chapter on interest groups includes a discussion of protest as a political tactic. Although the Iraq War triggered protest activity between 2003 and 2008, it has tapered off. Why? In "The Partisan Dynamics Of Contention: Demobilization of The Antiwar Movement In The United States, 2007-2009," Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas report:

Changes in threats perceived by activists, partisan identification, and coalition brokerage are three mechanisms that help to explain the demobilization of the antiwar movement in the United States from 2007 to 2009. Drawing upon 5,398 surveys of demonstrators at antiwar protests, interviews with movement leaders, and ethnographic observation, this article argues that the antiwar movement demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, if not policy success in ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The withdrawal of Democratic activists changed the character of the antiwar movement by undermining broad coalitions in the movement and encouraging the formation of smaller, more radical coalitions. While the election of Barack Obama had been heralded as a victory for the antiwar movement, Obama’s election, in fact, thwarted the ability of the movement to achieve critical mass.

Libya and War Powers

Last week, the president wrote congressional leaders about Libya. Though his letter did not directly mention the War Powers Act, it suggested that this law did not apply:

The initial phase of U.S. military involvement in Libya was conducted under the command of the United States Africa Command. By April 4, however, the United States had transferred responsibility for the military operations in Libya to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the U.S. involvement has assumed a supporting role in the coalition's efforts. Since April 4, U.S. participation has consisted of: (1) non-kinetic support to the NATO-led operation, including intelligence, logistical support, and search and rescue assistance; (2) aircraft that have assisted in the suppression and destruction of air defenses in support of the no-fly zone; and (3) since April 23, precision strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles against a limited set of clearly defined targets in support of the NATO-led coalition's efforts.

(Oddly, although the White House has posted many other letters to congressional leaders on its website (examples here, here, and here), this letter is not yet available there.)

The issue came up at Friday's White House press briefing with press secretary Jay Carney:

Q Libya, War Powers Act. Is there movement on that, from your perspective? Will there be consultation with Congress? I know we’re at a deadline on that.

MR. CARNEY: As you know, Mike, the President has been in consultation with Congress on Libya from the beginning. And the President’s actions have been and are consistent with the War Powers Resolution. We have said from the beginning that we would welcome an expression of support from Congress, in this case similar to the one that has been put forward -- bipartisan one put forward by Senators McCain and Kerry and others. And, again, we have consulted with Congress. We’ll continue to consult with Congress, and would welcome support.

Q Is there a feeling, though, that he needs to ask authorization for continued operation --

MR. CARNEY: I would just say that we have -- the President has acted in a way that's been consistent with the War Powers Resolution, and would welcome an expression of support by Congress.

In The Washington Post last week, Yale law professors Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway strenuously disagreed with the president's position:

But American planes and drones continued their bombing long after the April turnover — and the drones are still flying over Libya. Since the cost of the mission is at three-quarters of a billion dollars and climbing, it is sheer fiction to suggest that we are no longer a vital player in NATO’s “Operation Unified Protector.”

This is especially so when an active-duty American officer remains at the top of NATO’s chain of command. As supreme allied commander, Adm. James Stavridis “leads all NATO military operations.” While a Canadian air force general, Charles Bouchard, is in charge of the Libyan campaign, the buck doesn’t stop with him but with Stavridis, who also reports to the Pentagon as head of the U.S. European command. Even if American drones discontinue their operations before the deadline, an American admiral will still be in a position to call the shots.

This is no accident. NATO has been a key vehicle for American military interests since the 1950s. It would create a terrible precedent to pretend otherwise. Once Obama crosses the Rubicon, future presidents will simply cite Libya when they unilaterally commit America to far more ambitious NATO campaigns.

Make no mistake: Obama is breaking new ground, moving decisively beyond his predecessors. George W. Bush gained congressional approval for his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bill Clinton acted unilaterally when he committed American forces to NATO’s bombing campaign in Kosovo, but he persuaded Congress to approve special funding for his initiative within 60 days. And the entire operation ended on its 78th day.

Most Democrats are holding fire. So are most Republicans, as David Paul Kuhn writes at RealClearPolitics:

GOP leaders are no more eager to take up this constitutional fight than the lawmakers of Obama's own political party. A supporting resolution means Republicans sign off on the war. Their silence allows them the liberty to criticize the president's actions, should the conflict come back to haunt him. Americans remain ambivalent about the use of U.S. forces in Libya.

Yet this is a time when conservative activists carry copies of the Constitution in their pockets. Tea party protesters invoke the revolutionary "don't tread on me" motto. House Speaker John Boehner, like so many GOP leaders, publicly expressed his reverence for the Constitution during the health care debate. Yet as another president usurps the legislative branch's most solemn of power -- to declare war -- Republican leaders are not crying, "Hell, no!"

Eric Cantor's office told The Hill last week that the House majority leader was more concerned with "the lack of a defined mission and purpose" than the president's authority under the act.

This is the same Cantor who, last year, wrote an article headlined "Restoring Madison's Vision." "Congress -- and each of its members -- must take seriously its responsibility to legislate only within the few and defined powers of the Constitution," Cantor wrote. "Madison argued that electoral accountability was one of the bulwarks against tyranny."

Here is James Madison, writing to Thomas Jefferson, in 1798: "The Constitution supposes, what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.

The Writing on the Wall

Our first chapter deals with the concepts of freedom and democracy, which are easy to take for granted -- unless they are absent. The Los Angeles Times reports:

On walls across Libya's second-largest city are the same scrawled graffiti: Game Over.

Days after protesters took control of Benghazi after fierce attacks by Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi's militia and alleged mercenaries left many dead and injured, demonstrations continued at the courthouse where they began a week ago. People called for Kadafi's resignation and expressed support for anti-government efforts in the capital, Tripoli, and other cities.

"From the first day, from the 17th, there was no more fear. We fought fear; the revolution's youth taught us courage," said Abdulmutalib Bashir, 51. "We are a people who won't surrender; either victory or death."

The idea that "the writing on the wall" can spell doom for a regime is an ancient one. From Daniel 5: 25-28 (King James Version):

And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.

TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.