Trent Lott caused 9/11. This will surprise those who know the Mississippi Republican to be a patriotic American who has honorably served his state and country on Capitol Hill. I was unaware of Lott's culpability in that day of infamy myself until I was set straight by Vice President Dick Cheney, Sen. Joe Lieberman, and Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, who have declared that criticism of the president's "surge" plan is tantamount to treason.

The conclusion seems inescapable: With troops in harm's way, Lott had the temerity to disagree with the president of the United States and, therefore, emboldened the enemy, a sponsor of terror.

Lott emboldened our enemies back in December 1998. As F-18s were catapulting from the USS Enterprise to attack Iraq in Operation Desert Fox, as radar operators were anxiously scanning their screens for WMD-laden Scud missiles in the skies of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Lott publicly declared, "I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf." He challenged President Clinton's authority to use force. Troops in harm's way, 9/11 storm clouds gathering, and Lott undermined Clinton's decisions as commander in chief. By Bush administration logic, then, Lott emboldened Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong Il, the Iranian mullahs, Bashar al-Asad and whomever else happens to be on our enemies list today.

Congress must resist the administration's pressure campaign and fulfill its constitutional duty to soberly judge decisions of war and peace. As James Madison wrote, "The Constitution has with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature" because "those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things be proper or safe judges whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded."

"Emboldening the enemy" is a scoundrel's refuge that makes sacred the status quo, no matter how bad it may be. When there is no other rationale for a failed foreign policy, there is always the claim that changing policy will embolden our enemies. Since we can neither prove nor disprove that our enemies have been either emboldened or chastened, this argument is a political wonder-weapon, turning rational (and democratic) decision-making from a virtue into a vice. Our "credibility" is, apparently, as fragile as a soap bubble.

What then will we do if the president's escalation of the war should prove insufficient to chasten our enemies? Will they be awestruck by the resolve we showed in attempting it or incredulous at our foolishness for having done so? Even the best poker players know their cards will be called at some point.

The political scientist Hans J. Morgenthau argued in 1967 that "promoting credibility" was a blank check for unlimited military commitments. Since you can't know when you've made yourself credible, you can never stop trying to do so.

And when calls for resolve fail, this administration will fall back on the shopworn mantra of "supporting the troops." But Lott was not concerned with supporting the troops when he called into question Clinton's fitness to command during conflict, nor were his media allies like Charles Krauthammer who, during Operation Desert Fox, called the commander in chief a "man of no credibility" and a liar — hardly language one would recommend for those wishing not to embolden an adversary, especially one who had already issued fatwas against Americans. The support-the-troops mantra assumes that the troops prefer lap-dogs on Capitol Hill. But Pennsylvania Republican and Vietnam veteran Joseph R. Pitts once pointed out that, "When we were over there, the thing that demoralized us wasn't the fact that Congress was doing its job."

It is high time that Congress reassert its constitutional war powers. Republicans like Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John Warner of Virginia, under pressure by radical ideologues, like commentator Hugh Hewitt, to ignore that obligation and defer to the White House in the name of partisan fealty, can take comfort in the words of one of their own. Dismissing Lott's December 1998 gaffe, then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey said: "That, ladies and gentlemen, is why our democracy is so wonderful. As we engage in conflict overseas, democracy does not stop in America."

— Russell A. Burgos lives in Thousand Oaks.