The president of the United States does not have the authority to start a war. That’s Congress’s job.
The president, as the commander in chief, does have the right to take immediate action in the case of an emergency when there is no time to wait on Congressional authorization. He does not have the right to launch a war of his choosing while asking Congress to sign off later.
But President Joe Biden has just launched a war in Yemen without ever asking Congress.
With fighter jets and sea-based Tomahawk Missiles, the U.S. military (joined by others) bombed 16 sites in Yemen on Thursday. This was retaliation for attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Arabian country.
The U.S. is now at war with the Houthis.
The Constitution states that Congress and only Congress have the power to declare war. The president is supposed to execute Congress’s laws, which means he is supposed to carry out wars Congress has authorized.
Congress has clarified matters with the War Powers Act, which states that the president may deploy the U.S. military against an enemy only in case of “(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”
Congress has neither declared war against the Houthis nor passed a law authorizing the president to launch air attacks on the Houthis. Yes, the Houthis have attacked U.S. armed forces, but it’s hard to consider this the sort of emergency that requires the president to act without Congress.
Read Biden’s statement justifying his war. He never uses the words Congress or emergency, or claims there is an imminent threat. He mentions that the attacks “have endangered U.S. personnel,” and he states that “on January 9, Houthis launched their largest attack to date — directly targeting American ships.”
Again, this may be a fine and convincing argument for a war declaration, but Biden isn’t describing an imminent threat or surprise attack that requires immediate response today as opposed to a few days from now.
The attacks by the Houthis are not brand new. Check out this lead sentence from an Associated Press story:
“When U.S. and U.K. warships and aircraft launched waves of missiles at Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen early Friday in Sanaa, it capped weeks of warnings to the group to cease their drone and missile attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea or face severe consequences.”
Biden spent weeks building up to this war. If President Biden had weeks to warn the group and had the time to coordinate the attack with the U.K., Australia, Netherlands, Bahrain, and Canada, he would have had enough time to seek Congressional approval.
Maybe Biden doesn’t think he needs Congress’s approval for this war.
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Though that possibility sits poorly with Biden’s critiques of Trump’s killing of terrorist Qasem Soleimani.
Of course, presidential abuse of war powers is hardly unprecedented. President Barack Obama in 2011 launched an unauthorized war in Libya. The war had disastrous consequences, but President Obama never regretted it.