By Joe Biden’s admission, last night’s long-delayed retaliatory strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen were a long time coming. The strikes were preceded by 27 attacks on commercial shipping involving 50 nations and piratical assaults on crews hailing from 20 countries. A monthslong U.S. and British-led naval campaign to interdict Houthi attacks on shipping from the air and sea consumed vast quantities of defensive ordnance. And the Houthis’ attacks were not limited to commercial interests. The so-called Ansar Allah terror sect itself boasted of targeting U.S. naval assets. British ships, too, “may have been specifically targeted,” according to U.K. defense secretary Grant Shapps. The Houthis’ campaign all but closed the Suez Canal to commercial traffic, resulting in a 173 percent increase in container shipping costs. A robust reprisal wasn’t only justified by the laws of armed conflict — it had become an absolute imperative predicated on the most elementary apprehension of deterrence.

Unfortunately, that elementary apprehension seems to have eluded so many of our most influential lawmakers and political commentators. The only saving grace is that they have exposed their ignorance voluntarily. The least we can do is make an accounting of their unseriousness for future reference.

[The War Powers Act gives a president the authority to conduct such operations as long as he reports i to Congress promptly, so as long as the WPA remains law, there is no constitutional issue. Whether it should remain law is another issue, but this situation is precisely what Congress intended to cover with the law — immediate reprisals for attacks on American assets. And reprisals are necessary in these cases, because both to act and to not act sets incentives for future reference among our enemies and our allies. — Ed]