Biden is late – but right – to strike Yemen’s Houthis

is driven by a passionate commitment to human rights, but seems to have no noticeable objections to Houthi atrocities (or Hamas atrocities), including the Houthis’ restoration of slavery in Yemen.

Anti-Semitism, we’re constantly told, has nothing to do with anti-Zionism. The official slogan of the Houthis is “God is great, death to the U.S., death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.” You can tell me that “death to Israel” is merely anti-Zionist. But “curse the Jews”?

Perhaps because such hypocrisy is so hard to defend, the substance of opposition to the strikes, at home and abroad, is either to American military “escalation” or to escalation without required congressional approval (or parliamentary approval in the U.K.). Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) declared, “This is an unacceptable violation of the Constitution. Article 1 requires that military action be authorized by Congress.”

Throughout this crisis, “escalation” has been code for striking back. Even in the immediate hours after Hamas’ butchery, there were demands that Israel not “escalate” by responding. As for America, many opponents of escalation had no problem with Houthi and Iranian “escalation” by indiscriminately attacking global shipping and threatening American interests.

This illustrates the weakness of the constitutional argument. In March 1801, President Jefferson dispatched two-thirds of the U.S. Navy to wage war on the Barbary pirates. He didn’t formally notify Congress until December. As legal historian Robert Turner notes, “the Annals of Congress reveal no expression of concern that the president should first have obtained prior legislative sanction.”

The constitutionally dubious War Powers Act requires congressional authorization for the use of force, except in cases of “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its Armed Forces.” Even if, for some tendentious reason, you do not believe the Houthi attacks qualify for the exception, it’s worth remembering they’re just one facet of broader Iranian aggression — and escalation.

I have no objection to getting congressional buy-in, and Biden’s critics have a point: If he was willing to wait this long to respond to the Houthi attacks, he could have consulted with Congress.

But that’s the real problem: he shouldn’t have waited this long in the first place.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast.