The 13th Doha Forum has convened, with your loyal correspondent in attendance. It is an impressive gathering, filling the luxurious Ritz-Carlton. Cars are checked for bombs before approaching the hotel. Guests have to go through a metal detector both entering the hotel and inside heading to the conference. The meeting room was full, with just about every citizen of Qatar (who only make up something like 15 percent of the population) seeming to line the hallway before the Emir arrived.

There are few more tragic figures than onetime national leaders who have fallen away from the centers of power. For instance, after the Qatar royals, who still do matter, opened the gathering, to the stage strode a frustrated former British prime minister trying to remain relevant. The Right Honorable Gordon Brown, who finally grabbed the premiership from his frenemy Tony Blair only to lose it in the 2010 election, twice quoted John F. Kennedy while chattering on about the importance of interdependence.

Brown also urged the creation of a North African-Middle Eastern development bank to promote economic growth in such nations as Egypt—which, he failed to note, has been buried in foreign aid for years without generating economic growth. The former PM was introduced as preventing a new Great Depression (who knew!) and later lauded for his “profound” ideas (apparently defined as previously advanced by his hosts in Qatar).

Francois Fillon, a former prime minister of France, followed, telling us that we needed to solve the Syrian conflict, create a Middle Eastern financial institution, and “defend European civilization,” whatever that means. The moderator declared his ideas to be “fascinating” and his mention of Europe to be an example of “self-reflection.”

Amadou Bondou, the vice president of Argentina—which has made a practice of looting the productive and stealing people’s retirement savings—denounced austerity. These policies are having “negative repercussions” on poor people, he complained. No doubt, they are. However, if you have a wild party, you can’t very well expect everyone else to pay the clean-up costs. Next time countries, especially his own, should think before blowing their budgets to enrich favored interests and win votes.

Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, concluded the first session with a discussion about the importance of solving the Syrian conflict. He suggested a comprehensive conference to end the fighting and conduct of proxy wars in the region. Alas, what evidence is there that the parties are prepared to settle or that their backers are prepared to stay out? He also urged more humanitarian assistance for Syrians. He worried that if the Europeans fail to give more aid they may be left with no friends at all in Syria. Given the way that conflict is going, why would that be such a bad thing? Trying to make friends is about the dumbest reason one can imagine for getting involved in such a war.

Well, that’s the start here in Doha. I just can’t wait for additional “fascinating” observations from more “profound” thinkers like Messrs. Brown, Fillon, Bondou, and Ischinger!

Georgetown University’s Jennifer Daskal, and Stephen Vladeck, an associate dean in the College of Law at American University, have posted a working paper (.pdf) regarding the 12+ year old Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) at the Lawfare blog that is receiving, and deserves, some attention. The shorter version in today’s New York Times is receiving even more attention, presumably.

“After the AUMF” is written, in part, as a response to a Hoover Institution proposal (.pdf) that would replace the existing AUMF with, as Daskal and Vladeck describe it, “a new blanket framework statute authorizing the use of military force against as-yet-undetermined future terrorist organizations, and to delegate to the Executive Branch the authority to delegate those organizations against which such force may be used if and when the time comes.”

The crux of the Daskal-Vladeck critique rests on their claim that such a framework is unnecessary, and, worse, counterproductive. They explain that we should be trying to end, rather than extend, the war on terror, and that existing authorities (including many that have expanded since 9/11) are more than sufficient to protect the country against terrorist attacks. Should those authorities prove insufficient in the future (for example, if an as-yet-unknown terrorist organization materializes and plots attacks against the United States), Congress would retain the ability to pass a new AUMF–and would likely do so quite quickly, if past history is any guide. Lastly, they claim that the war frame, in general, undermines the nation’s counterterrorism goals by engendering hostility and resistance across a broad spectrum, from innocent civilians to heads of nation states, who resist being drawn into a never-ending war.

Although I am broadly sympathetic with the idea that we should move away from thinking of counterterrorism as a war, thus demanding a military response (about which I have written book chapters here and here), I believe that the most important of the Daskal-Vladeck objections revolves around the Hoover proposal’s apparent disdain for Congress, and its willingness to grant more power to the Executive Branch. The Hoover proposal claims that this would be an improvement over the current system, because it would give “the president the flexibility he needs to address emerging threats” and would “render more transparent and regularized the now very murky process by which organizations and their members are deemed to fall within the September 2001 AUMF.”

Elsewhere the Hoover paper claims that such a blanket predelegation of authority is required because “Congress probably cannot or will not, on a continuing basis, authorize force quickly or robustly enough to meet the threat.”

Daskal and Vladeck disagree. They counter that “no examples exist of cases where Congress either could not or would not provide the necessary authority–or why, in the interim, the President’s Article II authorities, criminal law, and other existing counterterrorism authorities weren’t sufficient to meet the threat.” On the contrary, the Congress has consistently demonstrated the ability and willingness to authorize wars quite quickly (too quickly, some might say), including within three days of the 9/11 attacks, and within five days of the supposed attack in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964. Thus, Daskal and Vladeck conclude, if a new terrorist group “were to emerge, nothing would or should stop Congress from providing a new, narrow and specific authorization to use force.”

They continue, with emphasis:

Proposals to delegate such future—and momentous—decisions to the President lack any historical precedent, and for good reason. It is Congress, not the Executive, that is given the authority under our Constitution to declare war. An authorization to use military force…should not be an ex ante delegation to the President to make unreviewable decisions to go to war at some future date. This is something our Founding Fathers understood well. Thus, proposals to delegate such a determination to the President threaten the carefully calibrated balance of powers enmeshed within the Constitution, essentially asking Congress to surrender one of its most important functions to the Executive.

This is an important and interesting discussion, and one that should not reduce to the predictable partisanship in Washington today. Some liberal Democrats agree with conservative Republicans that the president should be given more powers; other liberals and conservatives are joined in opposition to such suggestions. This timely–indeed, overdue–assessment of the powers that exist, and will be needed in the future, to deal with terrorist threats should and will be getting more attention in the weeks and months ahead.

The Islamic Republic of Iran will soon hold a presidential election. The result is in doubt—the clerical elite itself is split—but the country’s overall direction unfortunately is not. Iran has a deteriorating human rights record. Although Tehran is not the bloodiest or most tyrannical government in the Middle East, repression is increasing and the space available to regime opponents is diminishing.

Most attention has been focused on the unpleasant potential of an Iranian nuclear weapon. There is good reason to maintain an active campaign to forestall such a prospect. However, war almost certainly is a worse option. Bombastic rhetoric is common in Tehran, but the diverse political and religious figures now bitterly battling over power and wealth seem pragmatic, not suicidal. There is no reason to believe that the United States (as well as Israel) cannot deter Iran even if the latter developed an atomic bomb.

Iran’s worsening religious persecution is far less publicized. As I note in my latest Forbes online column, Tehran has generated a not-so-enviable record in brutalizing religious minorities—Baha’is, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Sunni Muslims. Such behavior belies a lack of confidence in the dominant theology which underlies the regime.

Sadly, there isn’t a lot the U.S. government can do. But people of goodwill around the world might achieve more. As I argue in Forbes online:

The West’s leverage over Iran is minimal. Some activists have criticized the Obama administration for not doing more, but it is not clear what more could be done, given the sanctions already imposed regarding the nuclear issue.

There may be a better hope of using international popular pressure. Explained [Indiana University Professor Jamsheed] Choksy, “Despite their heavy-handed actions, the Islamic Republic’s hard-liners seek to present their rule as benevolent and humane,” and therefore the regime has been “exhibiting rising concern about negative public perceptions of its rule.”

Individuals, groups, and activists, especially those which have not been at the forefront of the campaign to sanction and even bomb Iran, should press the Iranian government and other entities, from media to business, and protest the manifold violations of human rights. Visiting officials should be embarrassed by protestors. The regime should understand that its fight against sanctions for its nuclear activities continues to be undermined by its brutality at home.

Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rappoteur, confirmed that public pressure works. In March he noted that “At least a dozen lives were saved because of the intervention of international opinion.” More such action is needed.

In 1979 the Iranian people overthrew the Shah, a corrupt thug long supported by Washington. Alas, the Iranian revolution delivered even more tyranny. The Iranian people desperately await a revolution which actually liberates.