The first thing for the Senate to do when it takes up the war powers resolution just passed by the House is to give it a proper name. The Sun proposes the “Enemy Emboldenment Act of 2020.” For the resolution is designed to ensure that the Supreme Leader of Iran and his camarilla are not under any misapprehension that the Democrats support our GIs or their constitutional commander-in-chief.

One can see the Democrats’ logic. If the enemy thought that the Democrats and Republicans were united in respect of the war, the Iranians might decide to retreat. That, in turn, could have the deleterious effect of interfering with our election by creating the impression that President Trump was winning the war. In other words, there’s a real possibility that an Iranian retreat could throw the election to the GOP.

This is evident from the text of the Enemy Emboldenment Act, which contains a lot of palaver designed to obscure its purpose. This commences in Section 1, in which Congress makes its “findings,” starting with that “the Government of Iran is a leading state sponsor of terrorism and engages in a range of destabilizing activities across the Middle East” and that General Soleimani “was the lead architect.”

Another finding is that America has an “inherent right to self-defense against imminent armed attacks.” The Enemy Emboldenment Act of 2020, though, raises the question of whether the “inherent right” can be exercised without the Democratic speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, giving America permission to exercise its “inherent” right. It sets up hoops through which the President has to jump to get approval.

Among the “findings” is that the “killing of Iranian General Qassim Soleimani, as well as Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases, risks significant escalation in hostilities between the United States and Iran.” This may be cited as “hand-wringing clause.” It seems to suggest that the Iranians themselves need to seek the permission of Congress before responding to an attack by our forces that Speaker Pelosi might not have authorized.

What else could Congress mean by finding that enemy attacks risk escalating the war? What an expansion of Congress’s reach. Particularly because the Enemy Emboldenment Act asserts that the original, if much-maligned, War Powers Resolution — passed in 1973 — “requires” the President to consult with Congress “in every possible instance” before “introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities.”

The Enemy Emboldenment Act of 2020 ends with a section on “Rule of Construction.” This lays down the law on how the measure may be “construed.” It is sometimes called the “have it both ways clause.” Nothing in the measure, it says, may be construed to “prevent the use of military force” if Congress says it’s okay (please see above). Yet neither may it be construed to “authorize the use of military force.”

It’s not our purpose here to mock Congress’s standing to declare war. Or question the Democrats’ patriotism. We’ve reached the point in our newspaper life where we see advantages in a proper war declaration that would preempt our Democrats from saying they are against a war after once saying they were for it. So the Sun would be all in favor of the Senate approving the House’s latest war resolution — so long as it could be kept secret from the enemy.