Our family did not receive its usual White House Christmas card this year. I know thousands of these are distributed, but I can't help feeling that the president may be frustrated with me for no longer supporting the war in Iraq.
I did support the war. Indeed, in the weeks leading up to the war my pastor in Washington, D.C., where we were then resident, asked me to present the case for intervention before the parish community. I agreed, though it was no easy task, as Sen. Ted Kennedy and his wife were fellow parishioners.
In early 2003 a plausible case for intervention could be made. For more than a dozen years, the now-executed Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at one U.N. resolution after another. What was he hiding? Few at the time thought it a charade. Few at the time were willing to take the risk.
There also was some reason to believe --- and many of us surely wanted to find --- a connection between al-Qaida and Iraq. At least this would make terrorism somewhat explainable, though in 2007 we know it lacks even this thin veneer of explanation.
Finally, there was ethical justification: humanitarian intervention. Saddam was not above murdering his own people, and as one commentator summarized the teaching of the late John Paul II: "Arms must be silent whenever possible, and all peaceful avenues explored. But when the wayfarer is attacked by the evildoer, then the good Samaritans must intervene, including with force."
These justifications were more powerful than today's opponents are willing to concede or remember.
The day of my presentation, Kennedy's in-laws, Eunice and Sargent Shriver, made a special point of complimenting me for a case well made -- a point of pride then and of embarrassment now.
The reason for war having been established, there was every constitutional reason to support the president's exercise of war power. Article II of the Constitution denominates him commander-in-chief. The Congress by overwhelming margin had authorized use of military force in the most expansive terms. While there would be much Jesuitical argument that this fell short of a formal declaration of war, in truth and in history there have been few declared wars (five) and hundreds of military interventions.
The founders understood that this nation could resist external attack only by the unity of the presidency and "its energy and dispatch."
The president, having made his case, deserved the full range of that legal authority. The Supreme Court in the year just concluded was deeply mistaken to short-change him by giving credence to nonexistent habeas claims for the enemy or by deconstructing the president's well-conceived system of military commissions. Congress was right almost immediately to reverse the court. Did the president's actions prevent another 9/11? Who can say? Who would not have wanted those actions to be taken to find out?
But it is 2007, and we know the justifications for the war were illusory. Whatever Saddam's motivations for bluffery, the weapons of mass destruction were not to be found. The 9/11 commission established the absence of a connection to al-Qaida. As for humanitarian intervention, well, the insurgency long since has wiped out the humanity of our assistance.
The president's justification for escalating the Iraq war with an additional 22,000 troops is unconvincing. More, it is deeply disappointing. It manifests little respect for public sentiment and makes no genuine effort at convening a diplomatic summit with European and Middle Eastern nations that share the desire for a stable, peaceful Iraq.
However well-intentioned the initial intervention in Iraq may have been thought to be, and however noble the sacrifice made for those original intentions shall remain, the time for American troops to leave Iraq is now. If we return to rebuild in the company of the world community, Mr. President, you can count that as a victory.
Douglas Kmiec is professor of Constitutional Law and Caruso Family Chair in Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University's School of Law in Malibu. |