The Democrats’ weakness on war powers |
Given my longstanding disgust with America’s lawlessly interventionist and self-destructive foreign policy, I should be outraged by Donald Trump’s cavalier remarks justifying – and weirdly minimizing – his surprise attack against Iran in collaboration with Israel. After all, a president stupid enough to mock the new Supreme Leader as “damaged” and only “alive in some form” – while simultaneously urging sitting-duck oil tanker captains to “show some guts” by running the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – is someone who logically should be rebuked in the firmest possible terms.
But this wildly unstable solipsist is very different from other politicians. Moreover, I can still find the President, in his latest manic phase, laugh-out-loud funny, especially when he turns new-age confidential with reporters; for example, asked on Fox radio when he might halt the war, the President replied, with uncharacteristically emotive language, “When I feel it my bones.” This was in the same vein as his comment after the bombing of the Kharg Island oil-export terminal, which he described as “totally demolished,” even though “we may hit it a few more times just for fun.”
Trump is incorrigible, and unreachable, so outrage is a hopeless tactic and calling him a hypocrite largely useless. If you want to express true outrage, it would be better to focus on the feeble, more politically sensitive opposition party known as the Democrats. The party’s latest act of outrageous cynicism occurred on March 5, when the House Democrats, led by the impeccably attired and pusillanimous Hakeem Jeffries, voted on whether to invoke Section 5(c) of the War Powers Act, which would have required Trump to stop the Iran war immediately and forced him to request permission from Congress to renew his unconstitutional........