Stretching Presidential Power
Donald Trump has made waging war more centered than ever before on presidential prerogative. The same president who once fulminated against his predecessors’ penchant for going to war has turned into an imperial leader who can’t get enough of it. He has not merely built on past violations of law and the Constitution to make war. He has expanded presidential authority in exceptionally dangerous ways, taking advantage not only of Republican majorities in Congress but also of the Supreme Court’s decision that grants the President broad immunity on his actions.
Let’s be clear: Every President since World War II has tried to stretch his authority to act abroad. Whether we’re talking about Truman in Korea, Kennedy and Johnson in Vietnam, Nixon in Cambodia, George W. Bush in Iraq, or now Donald Trump in Iran, all abused presidential power. The President’s role as commander in chief has for a long time meant the power to deploy US forces wherever he judges “national security” to be in danger—and then challenge critics to reverse his decision.
Deploying power is extraordinarily expansive, since “US forces” may include the CIA, corporate executives, special forces, mercenaries, and other agents besides the regular armed forces. Those agents have sought to topple governments, assassinated and kidnapped government leaders, tortured opponents, and bought off political parties and military leaders. In all these cases, Presidents have typically dispensed with legal concerns in determining when, where, and how the US will intervene abroad.
No Need to Consult
When it comes to war making and other uses of force, the Trump regime—for that is what it is—has outdone its predecessors in several respects: ignoring the Constitution, sidestepping Congress and allies on prior consultation, controlling information, defying laws governing the use of force, and making war a religious venture.
The Constitution’s grant of war making authority may mean little if a President decides that the use of US power abroad isn’t a war. Trump has done exactly that—first, by authorizing attacks on alleged Venezuelan drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, followed by the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro for trial in the US; second, and most outrageously, by launching a six-week-long air assault on Iran. In Trump’s lexicon, “war” does not exist, only “military operations,” a bit of trickery perhaps learned from Vladimir Putin’s “military action” against Ukraine.
The role of Congress in war making used to mean advance consultation by the President with the relevant committees, adherence to restrictions imposed by Congress (such as the War Powers Act–WPA) on deploying US forces in combat, and bargaining over budgetary limitations that Congress might legislate. In previous years, Presidents have occasionally consulted with Congress and at least acknowledged the reporting requirements of the War Powers Act. (Note that the WPA has never actually stopped a military action in progress.)
Trump has cleared away all these potential obstacles. He and his top advisers have consulted with very few members of Congress, after the fact and offering precious little information. The WPA has had no perceptible impact on the regime’s war plans—least of all in an undeclared war. Every attempt by Democrats to bring Trump’s war on Iran to a halt by resolution has failed.
Congress, controlled by the Republicans, has left the field to Trump to do whatever he wants, regardless of the expense, even when some of them have expressed misgivings about his war strategy (or lack of it) and obscene threats. Far from using the power of the purse, moreover, the Congressional majority is weighing the regime’s request for huge increases in the Pentagon’s war budget ($200 billion) and in its next budget cycle (to $1.5 trillion).
The failure to consult also applies to US allies. Trump has upbraided NATO for refusing to support his war, which is true. Some NATO countries, such as Britain and Spain, have rejected US use of bases there to attack Iran. All of them have refused to act to open the Strait of Hormuz. Trump may threaten to leave NATO, which is not within his power, but the blame rests on him for not consulting the organization before going to war. (If he had, he would have gotten sound advice and a suitable rebuff.)
Controlling Information but not the Use of Force
Hand in hand with the failure to consult is the regime’s approach to information. It has persistently refused to state the war’s aims, accept intelligence findings contrary to its beliefs, and suppress information about its intentions.
Every assumption on which Trump has acted—e.g., that Iran is close to having a nuclear weapon, that it is an imminent threat to US national security, that the Iranian people will rise up against their leaders, that assassinating Iran’s old leaders will bring “reasonable” new leaders to power, that the war will be over in a few weeks—has proven faulty. Yet the Trump regime has refused to reevaluate its war policies.
Instead, Trump and Pete Hegseth have directly attacked journalists and news organizations that publish unfavorable war news. Hegseth has sequestered the press at the Pentagon to keep them as far from leaks as possible. (A federal judge has ruled that illegal.) Presidents normally regard the press with some degree of distaste, but Trump and Pete Hegseth have declared war on questioning.
The use of force also has some new components.
One is reliance on Israel to conduct air strikes that target supposedly dual-use (military-civilian) entities, such as rail lines, bridges, and industrial plants. A case can be made that such targeting violates international law on protection of civilians. Moreover, the US has been generous in supplying weapons to Israel that are being used in the Iran war, in violation of US law.
Second, Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and eradicate a “whole civilization” are clearly war crimes as defined in the Convention on Genocide. Bombing desalination plants and energy facilities, as well as health care centers and schools, to prevent an entire population from having access to essential needs for daily life are surely also war crimes. Neither the President nor any of his advisers has expressed the slightest remorse over this devastation, which has also resulted in roughly 1,700 civilian deaths.
In God We Trust
Finally, we have the religion issue—Trump’s invocation of God to justify warmaking. Many US policy makers over the years have expressed the belief that God is on our side when the US uses force abroad.
But under Trump that belief has become a fixture and not merely a prayer. Whereas Vice President JD Vance is reported to have diverged from Trump and Pete Hegseth in saying that he hopes God is on our side in Iran, the latter two are certain that the war is blessed by God.
Trump took this a step further when, in his profane rant against the Iran leadership, he ended with a callous appeal to Allah. This denigration of Muslim belief is typical of a regime that actively promotes Christian nationalism.
A Reckless Regime
Beyond breaching intended constraints on presidential war making, we have one other that makes Trump’s war on Iran unique: His failure to explain why war is necessary, what it will accomplish in the national interest, and how long US involvement will take.
Previous presidents have spoken regularly to justify military action abroad. Their arguments may have been unpersuasive or downright absurd, but at least they offered one. But now, the public, the press, and Congress get no consistent or meaningful rationale for putting soldiers in harm’s way and causing a global energy crisis. Trump has simply plunged ahead, oblivious to the obstacles to success, to public opinion, to his own promises, and to the law.
Thus does his administration find itself engaged in a war that is widely unpopular, unsupported by European allies, and extremely costly for the US and the global economy. Previous presidents were defeated by engaging in unlawful and unpopular wars. Trump may well be impeached and removed from office in addition to suffering defeat. But all his troubles stem from his own recklessness.
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.
Law for the lawless
by Bruce Altschuler
Should the United States be bound by international law? Donald Trump doesn’t think so nor does his defense secretary. Last January President Trump told the New York Times, “I don’t need international law.” According to Pete Hegseth, “We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” Not only has “no quarter” been considered a war crime since the 1899 Hague Convention; it violates the United State War Crimes statute which has a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Hegseth has dismissed such concerns as “stupid rules of engagement.” Nor is it likely that the Trump administration would prosecute him for following the orders of the President.
The Iran War itself is likely a violation of the United Nations Charter which prohibits the use of force against another country except in cases of actual or imminent armed attack. In addition, the principle of proportionality, established in Article 51 of the Geneva Convention prohibits attacks which may cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects, excessive in relation to any anticipated military advantage. Trump’s actions and threats have gone even further than that. At an April 6 news conference, he threatened to “decimate” every bridge and put every power plant in the country “out of business” if Iran failed to end its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. In a later social media post, he declared, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” The President of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley was so appalled that he declared that “the threat of destroying a whole civilization and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified.”
Why should any country obey international law, especially during a time of war? Because war is literally a matter of life or death, why should any means of winning be off limits? Trump's and Hegseth’s view seems to be that in war, might makes right, moral values be damned.
International law itself is a slippery concept. Unlike American domestic law, which is set out in the Constitution, statutes passed by Congress and state legislatures, and court decisions, there are no equivalent international institutions that enact and enforce international law. Instead, it is made up of treaties and conventions such as the Geneva Conventions or the United Nations Charter that have been approved by most countries as well as customs established by years of precedent. As for Courts, the International Court of Justice settles disputes between countries but only if they have agreed to its jurisdiction. Although the International Criminal Court (ICC) can prosecute war criminals, the United States is not one of the 125 countries that ratified the Rome Statute which established the court and does not recognize its authority. Under Donald Trump, sanctions have been imposed on nine judges and the chief ICC prosecutor for investigating U.S. and Israeli officials for possible war crimes.
Without an international law enforcement agency to arrest violators, the fear of punishment that deters at least some people from crime lacks an international equivalent. Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is not going to investigate him, especially since the Supreme Court has declared him immune from criminal prosecution for official acts nor is a Congress controlled by his own party likely to impeach him, let alone remove him from office through a Senate trial. As Trump told the New York Times when asked if there were any limits to his own power, “there is one thing. My own morality.”
If what induces most of us to obey the law, our own morality or the fear of punishment, does not deter Trump from following the law, is there anything that can? The answer, however counterintuitive it may seem at first, is self-interest. That is why most countries enter into international agreements that limit their own power such as the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Accords, the Nuremberg Principles, or even the ICC.
The Geneva Protocol banning the use of poison gas provides a good example. The effect of these weapons in WWI was so horrible that negotiations after the war culminated in its adoption in 1925. Although there have been notable examples of violation, neither side used it during WWII because they knew that if they did, their enemy would retaliate in kind. While hardly perfect, the protocol has at the very least significantly reduced the use of chemical weapons in war.
Hegseth’s “no quarter, no mercy” edict should be rejected, even if he lacks the character to do so for moral reasons, on similar self-interest grounds. Countries treat prisoners of war humanely because they want their own prisoners to be similarly treated. When Iran shot down two American airplanes, until they were recovered, there was a fear that Iran would capture them. If Iran did so, what would prevent them from executing them, using “no quarter, no mercy” as justification? The obligation can’t simply be that only one side should act humanely. This self-interest explains why so many countries have approved these agreements.
To say that international law is imperfect is a gross understatement. However, observing it is not only the right thing to do, preventing the death of uncountable innocent civilians, it serves the self-interest of every country that respects it.
~~~~~~~
Dr. Bruce Altschuler is emeritus professor of political science.
