This matters, because the Constitution invests Congress — not the president — with the power to decide whether to go to war. This isn’t a question of some obscure provision such as the emoluments clause — it is clearly spelled out in Article I. The language is unequivocal. It is so obvious that it has reduced some conservatives to arguing that Congress’s constitutional power to declare war is no limit on the president’s power to make war. Put another way: “None of the Ten Commandments explicitly says you cannot break the Ten Commandments.” This is risible sophistry on the Clinton model.

Others argue that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional. Perhaps, but if it is, it is because it delegates too much power to the president — power that the Constitution explicitly invests in Congress. It is worth considering that the War Powers Resolution was adopted to constrain executive military ambition, and that none of its criteria licensing immediate executive action with subsequent congressional consultation — an attack on the United States, on U.S. possessions abroad, or on U.S. forces — applies in the matter of Syria. But if you believe that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional, then you should be working for its repeal in Congress or its voiding by the Supreme Court…

Still others have said that the president’s attack on Syria is justified because Syria violated international law by using chemical weapons. But treaties and international agreements require enabling legislation if they are to have any legal force in the matter of U.S. government operations. International accords on chemical weapons do not preempt Article 1 of the Constitution. Neither does the Chemical Weapons Implementation Act, which in putting U.S. law into the service of the Chemical Weapons Convention tasks the State Department and the Treasury Department with various duties, but has no effect on Congress’s war powers. Until five minutes ago, conservatives were nearly unanimous in scoffing at the notion that international law or foreign law ought to be considered dispositive — if it is considered at all — in the domestic context. Some of the more energetic partisans on the right wanted judges impeached for citing foreign law. Now, suddenly, they are converts.

Others say that the president must “send a message,” as though that were a general war license, or complain that President Obama did more, as though his eight years of abusing presidential power ought to be considered the proper precedent. And some cite the long-standing Authorization for Use of Military Force passed in response to 9/11, as though that were a warrant to make war on any country with a Muslim resident — and, in the case of Syria, to fight in service of the Islamic State and sundry jihadists.