Iran: Will the Power of the Purse Prevail in War?

The Islamic Republic of Iran is emerging as one of the victors in America’s midterm election. How else to interpret the crowing at Tehran from the head of Iran’s National Security Council? Major General Mohsen Rezaei reckons that “the Iranian nation handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield and in the Hormuz — and a POLITICAL DEFEAT in Washington.” The comments were echoed by the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer.“We are going to end the war,” Mr. Schumer averred today. His comments are likely to inflame the constitutional conflict at Washington over the war powers of the federal government. Fresh on the heels of regaining control of the upper chamber, Mr. Schumer asserted that “the Founding Fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people.”Paging Alexander Hamilton, one could well respond. The Framers’ design of the Constitution, after all, divides the government’s war powers between the president and Congress. Yet “the circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite,” Hamilton wrote in 23 Federalist, “and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed.” Hamilton anticipated that presidents and legislators would collaborate in national security decisions as a function of “Energetic Government.” Yet the Framers made certain that, in times of danger, like that posed by the Iranian regime, presidents can take the initiative. That is why the commander in chief has the authority to run the military, implying the power to use his judgment when security threats necessitate a military deployment.Presidents have used this power liberally, deploying military forces, to varying degrees, in scores of foreign nations, as the Congressional Research Service reports. This array of military interventions reflects Hamilton’s insight that, as he put it in capital letters, “it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, or the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them.”Hamilton foresaw that the federal government’s war “powers ought to exist without limitation.” The divided nature of these powers has often sparked interbranch tensions. Congress, after all, has the power to declare wars and the authority to regulate the military’s operations — and to set the funding of America’s armed forces. Hence Mr. Schumer’s interest in wielding the “power of the purse” to second-guess Mr. Trump on the Iran war.The Democrats’ capture of Congress gives them “control over the appropriations committees in both chambers and oversee the drafting of annual military and foreign aid spending bills,” John Haltiwanger reports in Foreign Policy. “This far from guarantees that Democrats will get their way,” he concludes, “but the power of the purse will grant them considerable influence and negotiating power.” Will this power be wielded in America’s best interests?“Anyone who takes on Iran will pay the price — from the battlefield to their own doorstep,” General Rezaei threatened today in his remarks celebrating the outcome of the midterm voting. In the face of such hostility from the enemy, Mr. Schumer and the Democrats seem all too amenable to playing into the mullahs’ hands by promising to clip the president’s wings, and in effect terminate the war against Iran — even without victory.

Iran: Will the Power of the Purse Prevail in War?

Iran: Will the Power of the Purse Prevail in War?

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