Following up on the last item for a moment, Chris Matthews managed to ask one fairly interesting question at yesterday’s Republican debate, inquiring whether the candidates believe a president needs congressional authorization to take military action overseas, specifically in Iran. Mitt Romney, after saying a president has to act in the nation’s best interest, said, “You know, we’re going to let the lawyers sort out what he needed to do and what he didn’t need to do.”
Ron Paul was far more direct. “This idea of going and talking to attorneys totally baffles me,” he said. “Why don’t we just open up the Constitution and read it? You’re not allowed to go to war without a declaration of war.” As for U.S. enemies, Paul added, “[I]f there’s an imminent attack on us, we’d never had that happen in 220 years. The thought that the Iranians could pose an imminent attack on the United States is preposterous. There’s no way.”
It led to a helpful exchange.
GIULIANI: It really depends on exigency of the circumstances and how legitimate it is that it really is an exigent circumstance. It’s desirable. It’s safer to go to Congress, get approval from Congress. If you’re really dealing with exigent circumstance, then the president has to act in the best interests of the country.
And the point — I think it was Congressman Paul — made before, that we’ve never had an imminent attack — I don’t know where he was on September 11th. (Laughter.)
PAUL: That was no country. (Applause.) That was 19 thugs. It has nothing to do with a country.
GIULIANI: And there have been — and since September — well, I think it was kind of organized in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And if we had known about it, maybe hitting a target there quickly might have helped prevent it.
The debate moved on, but I it struck me as an odd thing to say, for a few reasons. First, I suspect Giuliani is wrong on the facts. There were 19 terrorists set on hijacking airplanes and killing Americans. They were in the U.S., taking flight lessons, and plotting their attacks. Does Giuliani really think airstrikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the summer of 2001 could have prevented 9/11? That would have led the 19 terrorists to just give up and go home? Does that even make any sense?
And speaking of confusing national security remarks, Fred Thompson recently defended Bush’s invasion of Iraq on the basis of WMD. Matthews asked Thompson to clarify.
MATTHEWS: Senator Thompson, Senator Brownback made the point that we haven’t been able to find the WMD. You made a statement a couple of days ago, I believe, that alluded to the fact: You believed that there were such weapons in Iraq. Do you believe they were there right before we got in and they were moved out somewhere?
THOMPSON: No, no.
MATTHEWS: What do you believe?
THOMPSON: No, I didn’t say that. I was just stating what was obvious, and that is that Saddam had had them prior. They used them — they used them against his own people, against the Kurds.
MATTHEWS: Okay.
THOMPSON: And of course, he had a nuclear reactor back — I believe it was in ’81 when the Israelis bombed that. And the Iraqi Study Group reported that he had designs on reviving his nuclear program, which he had started once upon a time.
So there’s not question that he had had them in times past. And in my own estimation, there’s no question that if left to his own devices, he and his son would still be running that place, attacking their neighbors and murdering their own people and developing a nuclear capability, especially in looking at what Iran is doing as their next-door neighbor and long-time adversary. And the whole place would be nuclearized.
Saudi Arabia would probably respond to that; other Sunni nations would respond to it. And you would have an entirely nuclearized part of the world that we don’t have now. That would be extremely problematic for us from an oil standpoint, as well as a global stability standpoint.
First, Thompson’s playing a little fast and loose with his WMD argument. Ten days ago, in Iowa, Thompson said Bush was right to invade because Saddam had WMD. Based on his clarification in the debate, Thompson apparently believes having WMD in 1991 justifies an attack in 2003. That doesn’t make any sense.
Second, Thompson took a ride on a pretty slippery slope. Iraq didn’t have a weapons program, but within a couple of sentences, he described an entire Middle East armed to the teeth with nukes. That’s absurd. By Thompson’s rationale, we should invade and occupy Syria and Iran immediately, so as to maintain stability and current gas prices.
That may sound like a good idea to Joe Lieberman and Bill Kristol, but in reality, Thompson, who seemed unable to speak without reading his notes, came across as Dick Cheney without the charm.