Guest Column: Pre-empting the Next War

By Paul Rogat Loeb

With the Senate embracing the reckless Kyl-Lieberman amendment,we've moved one step closer to attacking Iran. But there's still timefor Congress to assert itself against yet another needless war withmassive destructive potential. By defining Iran's Revolutionary GuardsCorps, a core branch of the Iranian military, as a foreign terrorist organization,Kyl-Lieberman put the U.S. Senate on record as vindicating theBush-Cheney line that Iranian proxies are part of a global conspiracy,linking Al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents, Hamas, Hezbollah, and any otherenemy the administration wants to list. The bill now makes it fareasier for Bush to manufacture some Tonkin Gulf-style excuse, then useit to justify an attack. No wonder Senator Jim Webb called it Cheney's  fondest pipe dream.
      
But this vote also gives opponents of this astonishingly reckless patha chance to push back, and draw a line against a unilateral war. LastMarch, Senator Webb introduced Senate Bill 759,to prohibit military action against Iran without explicit Senateapproval. The Foreign Relations Committee has bottled up Webb's bill sofar, but he's working to move it to the floor. When the Senators votedfor Kyl-Lieberman, most claimed, with echoes of Iraq, that they reallyweren't giving Bush permission to go to war. Webb's bill gives them achance to back up their rationalizations with their votes.

This past July, Colorado Congressman Mark Udall  introduced a companion measure, House  Resolution 3119,with identical language.  I'm suggesting they both go even further, toinclude a pledge to initiate or support impeachment proceedings if Bushinitiated such an attack without explicit Congressional authorization.In the House, such a resolution wouldn't even need Senate ratification(or overcoming a Republican filibuster or Bush veto), since the Housecan initiate impeachment proceedings on its own. While such aline-drawing Senate bill could be vetoed or filibustered, it can stillassert a fundamental constitutional prerogative, with a commitment tofollow through if Bush violated it.   

You might seeLieberman-Kyl as an indication that bipartisan jingoism against Iranhas reached such a fever pitch that none of this could happen. But ifthey hear from their angry grassroots base, the 28 Democratic Senatorswho voted for it just might start looking for a way to cover themselvespolitically, and distance themselves from the Bush-Cheney doctrine ofreckless preemptive wars. Even co-sponsor Jon Kyl claimed"this is not intended to be an authorization of military force againstIran.”  So with enough popular pressure, even Senators who justcapitulated might turn and vote for a pre-emptive resolutionreasserting that Bush is not the sole decider.

Not all theDemocrats supported the Kyl-Lieberman, of course. Although thoseshamefully backing it included Hillary Clinton and much of theDemocratic leadership, John Edwards blasted her for her stand, andBarack Obama, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson all opposedthe bill (though Obama missed the vote when Reid scheduled it earlierthan he'd previously indicated while Obama was stuck campaigning in NewHampshire). So  didnewly elected Democratic Senators Jim Webb, Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown,Claire McCaskill, Amy Klobacher, and Bernie Sanders, and RepublicansChuck Hagel and Richard Lugar. But the majority got stampeded onceagain.   

Convincing them to switch course and reassert theirright to make such a fundamental decision as whether to go to war withIran will require a major popular outcry: petitions--from groups likeMoveOn, TrueMajority, Working Assets, and Democracy for America--thataren't just mailed in, but publicly delivered by the basket.  It meansmarches, rallies and endless phone calls and visits to Congressionaloffices. It probably means people sitting in some of these same offices(and I bet similar efforts around Iraq convinced my own Senator,Washington State's Maria Cantwell, to vote the right way in this case).We can say these kinds of efforts have so far failed to halt the Iraqwar, but they've certainly fed the Congressional resistance, and it'salways easier to stop wars before they start. We're also demanding afar more modest initial goal of Congress and the Senate simplyreaffirming their constitutional right to make fundamentalwar-and-peace decisions in the first place. So it should be an easiersell.

It seems inconceivable that the Bush administrationcould even contemplate a military attack, given the massive globalbacklash it would create. But this administration feeds off a world ofits own illusions, so we'd be wise to heed those, like Seymour  Hersh,   Daniel Ellsberg,  and former CIA analyst Ray  McGovern,who warn that an attack is likely. Working to stop it doesn't meansugarcoating Iranian President Ahmadinejad's more questionableproclamations, though as University of San Francisco Middle East expertStephen Zunes has pointed out, even some of those are (or have been)misstated. Ahmadinejad's oft-quoted threat to "wipe Israel off the map”was in fact a mistranslationof a 20-year-old quote by Ayatollah Khomeini, and Ahmadinejadexplicitly told a group of American religious leaders that it was “notIran’s intention to destroy Israel.”    We can point out that Iran'sfundamental decisions on foreign affairs get made not by Ahmadinejad,but by the far more cautious Council of Guardians. And we can suggestthat those itching to attack try viewing the world through the lens ofthe Iranians, who remember, as we do not, that we've already onceoverthrown an elected government of that country, in the 1953 CIA coupthat deposed elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in favor of thebrutal Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Ahmadinejad might not even havebeen elected to office had Bush not rejected a major 2003 initiative byAhmadinejad's reformist predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, that included accepting peace  with Israel and tighter nuclear inspections, and backing off from supporting Hezbollah.    

Butthe campaign against a new Iranian war doesn't even have to demandagreement on Iran policy at all. It just has to reassert the right ofCongress to be the final arbiter of whether or not we go to war. Forall their cravenness in the face of Bush's demands, I doubt that mostSenators would launch into attacking Iran while we continue to be mireddown in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Pushing for a resolution assertingCongressional rights would provide a concrete focus for those of usworking to stop such a war, while placing CongressionalRepresentatives, Senators, and Presidential candidates explicitly onrecord about whether to grant Bush the power to take this immenselyreckless action. The voters could then respond to those unwilling tosign such a pledge.

Kyl-Lieberman is unquestionably asetback, giving Bush and Cheney still more latitude in proceedingtoward global conflagration. But the now-more-likely war we're tryingto stop is not inevitable. It's still up to us and the pressure we cancreate to stop it before it starts. Demanding Congress go on recordabout who decides would be a critical step.

(Paul Rogat Loeb has been writing guest-columns on and off for this web site since late-2004.  You can visit his web site at PaulLoeb.com)

Comments

[granny]

This is a great piece! And a great idea; what is mind boggeling is that it is also necessary.

One has to wonder what on earth is really going on.

Beyond this: "It seems inconceivable that the Bush administration could even contemplate a military attack, given the massive global backlash it would create"
- - because it has become a matter of fact that this man is far, far, from dealing in representative government (and really, why would he care about backlash? This is a true megalomaniac, about to go home and ride his bike). But beyond what he might conceive, what is Congress doing?

Truly it is beyond comprehension that this is a discussion that is taking place/a bill, that the US Congress is calling to vote,here and now: in the face of the war we are in, the clear consequences of this kind of aggression, the public outcry against it, the world outcry; what is known about the condition of our military, the in-eptitude of the leaders, the fiscal consequences. What on earth, one has to wonder, is driving this juggernaut that is careening along "outside" the White House? Or is ANYTHING outside the White House anymore - except Jim Webb?

And the details of the Congressional shenanigans reveal the dire consequences we now face for the disemboweling of the press, the dumbing down of the population, and the electronic info-media theater.

What has happened?

** and as a point of inquirey:I thought this language has been removed from the bill: "defining Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, a core branch of the Iranian military, as a foreign terrorist organization"