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Editor's note: Jane Harman is president and chief executive of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A former U.S. representative from California, she was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee from 2002 to 2006. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama has properly decided to go to Congress and then the American people this week to reveal his strategy to degrade and destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). To paraphrase former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, this is a crisis the President should not waste. How individual members of Congress respond to this call should matter and should be a 2014 election issue -- the duck and blame game stops here.

Since September 11, 2001, the relationship between Congress and the president has collapsed. Following the lead of President George W. Bush, President Obama has used Article II commander-in-chief authorities, plus the quaint and seemingly ancient 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, to hijack Congress' constitutional responsibility over war and peace.

As a member of Congress, I witnessed the transformation. I was there on 9/11 and a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee. But House Speaker John Boehner, The New York Times recently pointed out, is the only member of House Republican leadership who was in office on the day that changed this country. And Democrats have faced turnover, too; institutional memory of a time before the 2001 AUMF is fading fast.

Speaking to Chuck Todd for "Meet the Press" this weekend, Obama suggested he has "the authorization he needs" for the mission he has in mind,- but no one is clear on what authority he's invoking. Jack Goldsmith, writing for Lawfare, suggested recently that the Obama administration might think it can restart the War Powers clock with each notification it sends to Congress. By this otherworldly interpretation, we aren't fighting a war with ISIL, we're picking a dozen sequential fights with ISIL (which calls itself the "Islamic State"), and will continue doing so until the President decides he has achieved his objectives.

With all this going on, it's no wonder that we've struggled to craft a coherent response to this depraved band of thugs. There's a reason Obama doesn't feel able to trust this hyper-partisan Congress, but this is a poor way of shaping strategy. It's also an attitude that blows the War Powers Resolution to pieces and evokes Richard Nixon's actions in Vietnam.

Jane Harman

But it doesn't have to be this way. A change can start immediately, at no cost to the President.

When he speaks with congressional leaders, Obama should -- at the very least -- be explicit about what he believes his authorities to be. Can he strike Syria on his own authority? Can he keep up the air campaign in Iraq indefinitely by hitting the snooze button on the War Powers alarm every few weeks? If he believes the answer is yes, Congress deserves to know as much. But if the President believes he has these authorities, he's setting a very dangerous precedent. He does need a vote -- and he should want it, too.

Originally posted here:
Obama's big opportunity on ISIS