There is an unusual congruence of executive, congress and public opinion which is forcing a review of which branch of government can determine foreign policy. The Bush Administration believes in a time of war and national emergency in a unitary executive which has absolute power. Congress has usually deferred to the executive on foreign policy and left itself to its constitutional responsibility of the public purse, while public opinion is heavily against the executive at the moment and elected an opposition congress to curb the executive's foreign policy.

While much of current constitutional practice is based on what the branches of government in the US have fought over in the past, the US Constitution still serves as guide to who has power over what. For instance Congress has explicit authority:

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

The declaration of war has gone out of fashion since World War II. Congress doesn't do formal wars anymore. The militia is an interesting one as the current National Guard is the modern form of the older militia, though bills since have moved the Guard into increasing federal control. One that isn't disputed is that Congress controls the budgeting and money for the military and militia.

The executive has:

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States;

Though the executive does have explicit authority to make treaties, which have to be ratified by the Senate. So foreign policy is largely by convention in the hands of the executive, and since the executive has departments such as the State Department, which was created by legislation, it is a given that the executive controls foreign policy.

There have been a couple of op-eds recently arguing that Congress should use its power of the purse to reign in the Executive's foreign policy. Democratic hopeful Tom Vilsack wrote in an op-ed :

Members of Congress have a constitutional and moral obligation to exercise their authority to stop funding President Bush's failed policy in Iraq.

And William Odem :

Embracing the four myths gives Congress excuses not to exercise its power of the purse to end the war and open the way for a strategy that might actually bear fruit.

In both instances it is assumed that changing the funding of the conflict from the Executive's budget, to a Congressional budget, will force a change in strategy that presumably has to fit in with the level of funding.

But that doesn't take into the matter of politics. Currently the Bush Administration, and by implication, as well as concretely from the former Congressional majority, so does the Republican party. With 2008 elections coming up for the President and Congress it is possible that Iraq will be a dominating feature of voting patterns - as it was in 2006. So the Democratic majority in the House may choose to move timidly to avoid owning Iraq.

Can Congress restrict the level of deployment in Iraq through money bills? Yes. Will it? Probably not and if it does, only as much as they can while still leaving the President with ownership of the war.

More Reading on Usa

• USA
• Congress
• Iraq
• Book Review: Chalmers Johnson's Blowback
• The Home Equity ATM Machine
• Actively Using The Judicature
• Military Contractors Coming Under the Code of Justice
• US State GDP as Countries
• State of the Union as Separation of Powers
• Don't Feed The Trolls
• Questioning an Assumption in Separation of Powers
• The Branch Fight Over Foreign Policy in the United States
• Short Essay on Federalist Paper No.57