Jack Goldsmith, guru on national security law and a past member and critic of the George W. Bush administration, writes about Sen. Rand Paul’s proposal for war authorization against the Islamic State:  The United States has declared war in five armed conflicts in American history: The War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.  It’s not clear why Senator Paul wants to make the conflict against the Islamic State the sixth declared war in U.S. history. Perhaps it is because Article I, Section 8 expressly gives Congress the power “To declare war,” and not the power to authorize force. But this alone would not be a good reason. Since at least the Quasi-War in the 1790s, and continuing until today, it has been clear that Congress has the power — perhaps implied in the Declare War clause and surrounding war-related clauses — to authorize the President to use force in the absence of a declaration of war.  Moreover, since an authorization for use of force would also be needed, the real clue to Paul’s perspective is found in the tight restraints he puts on use of force, far greater than anything the Obama administration has ever applied:  Senator Paul also proposes in Section 2(b): “The President is hereby authorized and directed to use the Armed Forces of the United States to protect the people and facilities of the United States in Iraq and Syria against the threats posed thereto by” the Islamic State. This is a narrow authorization of force. Among other things, it authorizes force only in Iraq and Syria and, if I am reading “threats poised thereto” correctly, it does not authorize the President to use force against the Islamic State to protect threats to the American homeland. I am not sure why Senator Paul would want to limit the President’s authorized force to address threats posed to American people and facilities in Iraq and Syria and not to the homeland, and I am not sure whether it matters since the President always has Article II. But the juxtaposition between the full-throated declaration of war in Section 2(a) of Paul’s draft and the very narrow authorization of force in Section 2(b) is strange, and has no precursor in the five earlier declared wars. Among other things, the disjunction between Sections 2(a) and 2(b), and the narrow geographical scope and purposes of the force authorization, highlight that Senator Paul is proposing to use a war declaration in a conflict far different, and much less momentous, than prior U.S. declared wars.  Put differently, under the guise of toughness Paul is demonstrating his ultra-narrow view of U.S. hard power. What he gives with a showy war declaration he takes away in an authorization that limits force in time, geography and targets. Implicit in this is the notion that Congress can and should hamstring the executive to such an extent that war fighting becomes so limited as to be ineffective. The president becomes a minion of Congress on a very short leash when, in fact, the president’s actual authority in conduct of national security is broad.  Conservatives are not amused by Paul’s sleight of hand. As former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton puts it, “Senator Paul’s proposal shows that he does not understand the Constitutional authority of the commander in chief. Unfortunately, neither does Barack Obama. It’s a perilous time for the Republic.” Going from one president who insists on telling the enemy what we will not do to another who has an even longer list of “won’t do’s” would be disastrous, which likely explains why not a single member of Congress or recognized outside expert has proposed this kind of approach.  Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute also takes issue with Paul’s theory of war-fighting. “So Rand Paul thinks the fight with ISIS will be done in a year? Or that he is the superior judge of how to conduct the war one year out? Or that if we’re losing because the President fails to prosecute the war properly, we should withdraw his authorization and give up? I’d say this was dumb if we lived in a vacuum, but the enemy is watching too,” she says. “What do they think of Paul’s idea that America should fight for 12 months and then we’ll see? Pretty clearly, they think it’s great — just as they loved Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 ‘on schedule.’ ” And, she might have added, it also harkens back to Obama’s series of deadlines for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan that no doubt heartened the Taliban and terrorist networks.  Eliot Cohen, a military historian who helped develop the successful surge in Iraq, is blunt about the inadvisability of Paul’s approach. He tells Right Turn: “The purpose of an authorization for the use of force is to get Congressional sanction for a war — serious business. It is not to telegraph our lack of commitment by setting arbitrary deadlines for the men and women whom we send into harm’s way.”  As a political matter, it is not clear where this gets Paul. It does suggest he knows his past isolationist notions (previously declaring we had no real interest in Syria or Iraq, a position he has largely abandoned) won’t fly, but his efforts to pose as a tough guy fall flat. He may well end up annoying real anti-interventionists and earning the contempt of conservative hawks.  If nothing else, his latest gambit shows he is a pretty run-of-the-mill pol, trying to have it both ways and betting the voters aren’t all that discerning. Hillary Clinton certainly has met her match in that regard.  UPDATE: John Yoo adds his criticism of Paul’s restrictions on war: “War does not begin and end solely on our time. War also ends when the enemy agrees it ends. His belief that the conflict with ISIS will end in one year shares the same flawed worldview that underlies President Obama’s decision to [withdraw] our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan on an artificial timeline that — as we have learned now with the rise of ISIS in Iraq — has little to do with conditions on the ground and the state of our enemies.” He also spots the similarity between Obama and Paul. “Senator Paul’s deeper problem, symbolized by his proposal, is that the American people already embraced his foreign policy — six years ago, when it elected President Obama,” Yoo says. “Obama has followed the same isolationist instincts: he withdrew the U.S. from Iraq, has set a timetable for withdrawing from Afghanistan, put up little resistance to the rise of China and a revanchist Russia, and overseen an incredible reduction in spending on the armed forces. The midterm elections concretely demonstrate that the American people realize that Obama’s foreign policy has been a mistake and that our national security is under worse threat now that it was six years ago.”  Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.
In trying to pose as a hawk, the senator from Kentucky reveals his preference for a weak commander in chief.