How did we get to where a British executive goes to the legislature and an American does not?
September 26, 2014 4:40 PM
[This piece was written shortly after the British Parliament voted to approve the UK going to war against ISIS. President Obama had already declared war, without the approval of Congress--an explicit violation of the Constitution of the United States.]
By now, President Obama will have been made happily aware that the British parliament has voted to bomb Iraq. Serving as it does to broaden his coalition and to increase the number of voices singing in harmony with his own, one can only presume that the news will have put the president in a good humor. Good tidings, these days, are rarely attracted to Pennsylvania Avenue. And yet, having learned of the manner in which the British have come aboard, a certain unease should have crept in to puncture the delight. After a robust and fractious debate, the BBC reports, the British parliament consented to join America in Iraq by 524 votes to 43, legislators choosing by an overwhelming majority to provide Prime Minister Cameron with the mandate that he had sought. America’s Congress, meanwhile, has still not been consulted on the question at all. Something here is seriously wrong.
Earlier this week, when Obama announced that the United States would be joined in its bombing of Syria by Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, a few wags joked bitterly that the governments of those nations did not need to secure the assent of their legislatures because, unlike the United States, they are monarchies. The jab landed, and today, in light of the news from London, it has been rendered even more cutting.
For those of us who remain jealous of the rule of law, it has been little short of grotesque to watch just how differently the British and the Americans have dealt with this most weighty of questions.
