Paul Kanter had an interesting little blog post about the fact that Congress, which technically has the exclusive authority to declare war, has not done so with regard to Iraq (or any of the last several wars the U.S. has engaged in).  My first thought was that the Constitution's pronouncement that "Only Congress can declare war" was basically a quaint anachronism.  After all, the president is the Commander-In-Chief of America's military force, and once he has secured a broad grant of authority from Congress to address some situation as he sees fit, we can have a major war on our hands.  The fact that Congress did not formally declare war is irrelevant.  As we can also see, once Congress has given the president the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), there is no putting the genie back in the bottle.  If Congress eventually votes to cut off further war funding, their opponents suggest that they are "failing to support the troops" and practically guilty of treason.  So once the president has that initial authorization, in effect it can never be revoked, no matter how obvious it becomes that the war was a mistake, and that continuing it only compounds the mistake. 

I hope that Barack Obama will be our next president, so my suggestion is targeted primarily to him, but the same would apply to John McCain or anybody else.  Senator Obama, as we know, has taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago.  If he does become president, he is probably more of a constitutional scholar than any president we have had in a long time.  He should appreciate the importance of only Congress having the authority to declare war. 

I would like to have Barack Obama, along with other current and future candidates for president, publicly commit to the notion that the U.S. will not enter into new wars without a formal congressional declaration of war, as the Constitution intended.  We should allow for the exception of retaliation against a direct attack or truly imminent threat - circumstances where getting such a declaration by Congress would involve an inexcusable delay in addressing an immediate crisis. 

Had President Bush asked Congress for a declaration of war against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, I have no doubt that he would have received it.  Had he asked for a similar declaration of war against Iraq, he might well have been refused, and it would have been a good thing if he had then taken the hint.  In both cases, America's position would have been unmistakably clear. 

Instead, Mr. Bush did not ask for any declaration of war, but he got a more vaguely worded "authorization," which he took to mean unlimited powers, not only to wage war, but to commit all kinds of illegal acts, and basically claim that as commander-in-chief any exercise of his power is legal, no matter how much it abuses the Constitution or treaty or statute. 

We should also tell our congressional candidates that we will not stand for Congress passing the buck in the future.  They can declare war if the circumstances are appropriate, but (emergency situations excepted) must not give the president an ill-defined blank check to wage war without a formal declaration of war. 

We should expect this of our would-be presidents and lawmakers.