Congress: Only YOU Can Authorize War on Iran
News reports from last summer and fall indicated that the Bush Administration was developing plans for offensive military operations against Iran, possibly including nuclear weapons, and that these plans are not just "contingencies." Intelligence officials quoted by renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh described the planning as "enormous," "hectic" and "operational."
Right before the fall elections, President Bush moved up the deployment of a major naval task force to be in position off Iran's coast. And most recently, anonymous sources in the administration have been leaking dubious claims about Iranian involvement with factions fighting in Iraq's civil war, and Hersh has more details about the shifting plans for war here.
Yet our constitution says quite clearly in Article One, Section Eight, that only Congress has the power to declare war. Despite President Bush's expansive views of his own powers, a unilateral bombing attack on another country is in fact an overt act of war.
Make no mistake about it -- the President of Iran and the mullahs who back him are dangerous, anti-semitic theocrats. However, the consensus of American intelligence agencies is that they are at least ten years away, if not more, from developing their first atomic weapon. There is still ample time to engage diplomatically and solve this problem through international agencies such as the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The neoconservatives' view that American bombing attacks will cause the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their government can most charitably be described as delusional.
Fortunately, Representative DeFazio (D-OR) has introduced House Concurrent Resolution 33, expressing the sense of Congress that the President should not initiate military action against Iran without first obtaining authorization from Congress. In the Senate, Senator Sanders [I-VT] has inroduced similar legislation as Senate Concurrent Resolution 13, and Senator Webb has more recently introduced S. 759, which prohibits the use of funds for military operations against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization. We couldn't agree more. Ask your senators and representatives to co-sponsor these important pieces of legislation.
