Will America Declare the War It's Already Fighting?

On Wednesday, just over six months after bombs started falling again in Iraq, the White House sent to Capitol Hill the three-page document that Republicans and Democrats had long been clamoring for: a proposed resolution formally authorizing the use of military force against the Islamic State. Speaker John Boehner, who had personally and repeatedly demanded that the president submit his proposal, complained that the text's limitation on ground troops constrained the military. Representative