Yesterday the Dem House voted for the first time in House history to legislatively coerce the Trump administration into ceasing to support our regional ally in the war in Yemen. The GOP Senate passed the same Vietnam-era War Powers Act resolution last month. Not only is this blatantly unconstitutional, as the president is commander-in-chief, but they don’t have the votes to override a presidential veto.
Thus the president should loudly (he’s good at loud) say to the busybodies on both sides of the aisle: Piss off.
Yes, presidents can get us into dumb wars, as in Iraq. They can fail to intelligently prosecute just wars, as in trying to aid and reform Afghanistan instead of properly doing to it what Rome did to Carthage. But we elect them with the knowledge of their fallibility.
There is only one hand properly at the helm of national security policy, the president’s. That goes for any president. It’s bad enough some presidents ignore the advice of military leadership, like Johnson in Vietnam or Obama in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and attempt to micromanage wars. Now throw in 535 armchair Napoleons?
Oh, lovely.
You might say, but isn’t that just what you are, an armchair Napoleon? How dare you! I’m nothing of the sort! I’m an office chair with lumbar support Metternich, thank you very much.
If the Yemen war becomes an issue in 2020, who do you think the electorate will back on this question of a strong yet shrewd American presence around the globe? The president or a sponsor of the resolution in the Senate? That sponsor would be Bernie Sanders.
This particular war in Yemen pits our ally Saudi Arabia versus Iranian proxies. Golly gee, I wonder, which side ending up victorious would benefit U.S. national interests? The war started in 2014 when Tehran-backed rebels, the Houthis, overthrew the legit government. The Saudis stepped in, the Iranians saw them and raised them, and now it’s a stalemate. We’ve been helping with intel and logistics.
Opponents of our aid say the war is making an already desperately poor country worse because of the fighting. True. So, you know how to make that situation much better and end the fighting?
Win the war.
