butter, the problem with your Iran theory is that such a deployment order would clearly be in violation of the War Powers Act and the AUMF. And anyone in the military would know that a brigade commander cannot issue deployment orders.
And anybody knows that if the person authorizing the troop surge is not Constitutionally able to “act as President” the troop surge is just as unlawful as invading Iran.
The AUMF gave “the President” the authority to use force in the war on terrorism, as the War Powers Act authorizes Congress to do. So the lawful authorization for the use of force absolutely hinges on the decision of “the President”. Someone who is not able to “act as President” can not make that decision.
Unless someone who is able to “act as President” gives the authorization, the surge is just as unlawful as an unauthorized invasion of Iran.
The fact that an unauthorized invasion of Iran would be immediately recognized by all as unlawful just means that it’s crazy for people to say Lakin can’t decide for himself which orders are lawful, that he’d have to have a ruling by a court before he could know which orders were lawful, or that presidential authorization is irrelevant.
When people say that the case of Iran would be so obvious it just reveals how obvious it should be if an unconstitutional usurper pretended to authorize combat operations. For Lind to say it doesn’t even matter? That is so beyond the pale it’s beyond words.