Donkey Path: Iran: The Need to Get It Right

After six years, it's obvious to most Americans and to the world that we currently have the wrong team in the White House for dealing with, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, North Korea, Russia, China, Global Warming, energy, various trade issues and Darfur, not to mention Iran. And we have Republicans in Congress who seem unable to hold Bush accountable or even notice that the president and vice president have trouble getting their pants on in the morning. I'm tired of playing guessing games with an incompetent administration.

Millions of us of are tired of repeating the obvious. Congress needs to put a cap on what further trouble Bush can get himself into at the expense of our troops and our nation. It is time for right wing Republicans to back off and stop enabling Bush's wild schemes that are only likely to make things worse. Congress needs to limit Bush's ability to sell worthless stock in his failing enterprise.

In the Los Angeles Times, Leonard Weiss and Larry Diamond have some thoughts on what Congress can do:

...nothing prevents Congress from using its power of the purse to prevent an American attack on Iran. President Bush's neoconservative advisors and pundit supporters have been beating the drums of war with Iran since 2003, when the president declared Iran to be part of an "axis of evil." [note: Bush's axis of evil speech was in 2002] Recall that a senior administration official told The Times that Iran should "take a number" in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. In his recent address to the nation on the troop surge in Iraq, Bush issued more threats to Iran. Now the president has named a Navy admiral to head the U.S. Central Command and dispatched a second aircraft carrier and minesweepers to the Persian Gulf, presumably to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz in the event of conflict.

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Iran is not innocent of dangerous and provocative behavior. ...

But war is not yet justified, except in the minds of those who have been lobbying for it for years. Iran is still years away from being a nuclear threat, and our experience with "preventive war" in Iraq should teach us a thing or two. ...

(snip)

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has warned the administration that it had better seek congressional authorization for any attack on Iran. But we need Senate and House hearings now to put the Bush administration on notice that, in the absence of an imminent military attack or a verified terrorist attack on the United States by Iran, Congress will not support a U.S. military strike on that country. Those hearings should aim toward passage of a law preventing the expenditure of any funds for a military attack on Iran unless Congress has either declared war with that country or has otherwise authorized military action under the War Powers Act.

The law should be attached to an appropriations bill, making it difficult for the president to veto. If he simply claims that he is not bound by the restriction even if he signs it into law, and then orders an attack on Iran without congressional authorization for it, Congress should file a lawsuit and begin impeachment proceedings.

It is, of course, possible that the president's truculent language and actions toward Iran are a bluff, an attempt to rein in its irresponsible behavior.

But the administration's mendacious and incompetent course of action in taking the nation to war with Iraq gives us no reason to provide the president with the benefit of any doubt. ...