Time-Bomb Diplomacy | Justin Logan | Cato Institute: Commentary

Time-Bomb Diplomacy | Justin Logan | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In the long term, the problem is that it will be very hard for Washington to convince Tehran that it can trust American assurances. If Iran complies with whatever demands are made of it, how can it be sure that the United States will not attack anyway at some point in the future? It is very hard for a unipolar power like the United States to credibly commit to abstaining from doing something in the future because the cost of reneging is relatively low."

"One does not have to be extraordinarily empathetic to see how the prospect of a Libya-style deal might play with Iran’s Supreme Leader. Put bluntly, given the past decade of U.S. foreign policy and the structure of the international system, Iran would be irrational not to want a nuke. Our policy of sanctions and pressure is doing little to change that."

"Traditional conservatives will recall that Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war. They will also recall that despite the last 60 years of American diplomatic history, the last enemy against whom the United States declared war was Ion Antonescu’s Romania in June 1942.

Part of the reason congressional war-making has fallen out of favor is that in declaring war Congress leaves its fingerprints all over the affair. If the decision is a bad one, legislators might pay a dear political price for having embroiled the nation in a costly or counterproductive war. The Founders’ decision to vest war-making power in the Congress reflected in part a belief that the nation should be reticent to enter conflicts. As enunciated by James Wilson, entrusting the war power to Congress had the advantage that “this system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it.”"

"Congress has urged the president to launch a war on Iran while ignoring its own power to do so. Last November, Senator Joseph Lieberman told the Weekly Standard’s William Kristol that there is “a broad, bipartisan base of support if the Commander in Chief comes to a point where he thinks [war with Iran is] necessary.” Lieberman and his permahawk confrère Sen. Lindsey Graham have drafted legislation declaring that the president can do anything he wants to Iran except contain it."