Glides right past the eye, doesn't it? Good old Constitution, empowering the president to protect us all!

The only problem is it's not true, and it represents a two-century high-water mark in claims of executive power. Having been consulted by the president, Congress is poised to respond by throwing back at him not only the current decision but sweeping new powers he didn't have before.

During this crisis, all of us should be checking Lawfare the way heart patients check their pulses. Jack Goldsmith of Harvard, writing there, was the first I know of to pick up the strange little constitutional time bomb:

The draft AUMF enhances, through congressional recognition, the President's claims of independent constitutional authority to use force in Syria. Here is why. The draft acknowledges in its last "Whereas" clause that the President "has authority under the Constitution to use force in order to defend the national security interests of the United States." This broad and unqualified congressional acknowledgment of independent presidential constitutional power takes on special significance when combined with other "Whereas" findings, especially Congress's recognition that (a) "Syria's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction threatens ... the national security interests of the United States; and (b) "Syria's use of weapons of mass destruction and its conduct and actions constitute a grave threat to ... the national security interests of the United States." (My emphases.) I think these provisions together constitute congressional acknowledgement that the President has constitutional authority, independent of the AUMF, to use military force to defend against the acknowledged threat to U.S. national security interests posed by the Syrian acquisition and use of WMD .... Note that this very broad congressional acknowledgment of presidential power does not suggest any geographical limitation. ... [T]he Senate's draft "Whereas" clause is much broader than the analogous ones during the Bush era. The "Whereas" clause in the 2001 AUMF, which at the time was criticized for being quite broad, is more concrete and narrow than the Senate draft, for it recognizes only that "the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States." (The 2002 Iraq AUMF has the same basic language as the 2001 AUMF). The "Whereas" language in the draft AUMF gives significant support to the position that the President has some (uncertain) independent constitutional authority to use force in Syria, regardless of what Congress authorizes, and (perhaps) beyond what Congress authorizes. Since I believe that a unilateral presidential use of force in Syria would go beyond all past OLC precedents, the "Whereas" clause as currently drafted is especially important to the President's novel constitutional position.

Note that this astonishing language did not appear in the administration's own draft authorization. Having been asked for broad authority already, the warriors on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for all their minimizing language, have in practice widened the White House's mandate -- to the point that, if it is adopted by Congress, neither Barack Obama nor any future president will likely have to come back for additional authority to fight against Syria and its chemical weapons anywhere in the region. And it will have written into law an explicit statement that the president doesn't need authorization to use force anywhere, any time he or she determines that "national security" demands it.