The President should seek a Congressional Declaration of War against Iraq before ordering any strikes. At least, that’s the argument being made by Cato’s Doug Bandow (writing in The National Review) and George Will, writing in The New York Post:

Today the justifiable, but undeniably radical, policy of pre-emptive war compels Congress to play a dramatically different role [than it did in WWII]. What is under way is without precedent in U.S. history. It is a methodical and semi-public preparation for a massive military operation to achieve an aim frequently proclaimed at the highest levels of government. The aim is to compel a change of regime in a nation that is intensely and increasingly menacing as it strains to achieve the capacity for attacking American interests.

A pre-emptive U.S. attack can be justified by the doctrine of ‘anticipatory self-defense.’ According to David Rivkin, Lee Casey and Darin Bartram, writing in National Review, that doctrine was enunciated by Hugo Grotius, author of the first great treatise on international law, after a British fleet attacked Spanish ships in harbors in 1587, the year before the Armada sailed for English waters. But precedent in international law is no substitute for congressional authorization.

Some say such authorization is not required because of the continuing vitality of the 1990 U.N. resolution responding to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. But one reason the first President Bush stopped short of toppling Saddam is that the U.N. resolution did not encompass that. And a U.N. resolution is irrelevant to the constitutional requirement of congressional authorization for a major military operation beyond (in Madison’s words) repelling sudden attack.

In January 1991, 47 of 57 Democratic senators, including the current chairmen of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees (Joseph Biden and Carl Levin) voted against authorizing force to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Most of the 47 said sanctions would suffice to reverse Iraqi aggression, or at least the sufficiency of sanctions should be tested for a considerable time. Had this policy prevailed, Kuwait would be an Iraqi province.

Today most Democratic presidential aspirants serve in the legislative branch. It is in the interest of all voters, and especially of one who votes in Crawford, Texas, for those aspirants to be required to publicly debate and vote on this issue.

Listen: as long as the end result is Saddam’s overthrow and the dismantling of his WMD programs, I don’t care how we get there (though should our success in such endeavors hinge on Hollywood’s promise never to give Freddie Prinz Jr. another starring film role, I’d not lose much sleep).

Besides, Bush has already said he’ll consult with Congress before moving forward with any operation in Iraq — a wise choice, given that many of our allies seem to be distancing themselves from our military strategy in the war on terror.

A strong, bipartisan showing of support by Congress to the President’s plans for regime change in Iraq would go a long way toward giving lie to the image many Europeans have of Cowboy Dubya running roughshod over the carefully calibrated containment wishes of the majority of those in American government.

Let’s disabuse them of that notion.

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