THE WOT, TRADE AND GOLF:

 In May 2013, President Obama gave a landmark speech [10] at the National Defense University on his counterterrorism policy. Afterward, Benjamin Wittes remarked [11] that the "unifying theme" of that speech was that "it was an effort to align himself as publicly as possible with the critics of the positions his administration is taking without undermining his administration's operational flexibility in actual fact."

The use of the 2001 AUMF as the legal basis for Operation Inherent Resolve represents a classic example of this approach. Obama stated in his NDU speech that he wanted to engage "Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate." He has reiterated [12] this pledge as recently as this year. His administration, however, has done exactly nothing toward this end. Indeed, it has since expanded the AUMF's mandate by using it as the legal basis for its military actions in Iraq and Syria. And it has even been reported [13] lately that Obama has authorized using force against the regime of Bashar al-Assad as well if it were to come into direct conflict with U.S.-backed forces in Syria. At Cato, Healy said that the AUMF has become "an all-purpose enabling statute for presidential wars." It would be hard to disagree.

Or consider the prison at Guantánamo Bay. In his first week in office in 2009, Obama issued an executive order calling for the facility to be shuttered within a year. Six and a half years later, the prison remains open, with 116 detainees [14] kept there as of this writing. Obama continues to decry the prison as a moral outrage, saying [15] this March, for example, that "it's not who we are as a country." But his administration still embraces the practice of indefinite detention that is Guantánamo's most notable characteristic. Even if Congress were to drop all of its objections and the prison were to be closed, under the administration's own stated plans, 32 of the prisoners [16] would still be designated for indefinite detention without charge or trial.

Or consider the U.S. intervention in Libya. In 2007, on the campaign trail, Obama said, in response to a questionnaire [17] from reporter Charlie Savage, that "the President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." Then, in 2011, he did precisely that, ordering the use of military force for roughly half a year to help overthrow the regime of Muammar al-Qaddafi. His administration argued at the time that, as the New York Times summarized [18], the president "had the authority to continue the military campaign without Congressional approval because American involvement fell short of full-blown hostilities."

Or, finally, consider the war in Afghanistan. Last December, Obama issued a statement [19] in which he declared that "our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion." This year, on Memorial Day, he said [20] that day was the first Memorial Day "since our war in Afghanistan came to an end." But roughly ten thousand U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, conducting counterterrorism operations [21], among other things. And the pace of America's planned drawdown has been delayed [22], with that number to remain there through the end of 2015.

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