Candace

Talmadge

Read Candace's bio and previous columns

August 11, 2008

Congressional Resolutions Make Iran Situation Worse

What usually happens when you back someone into a corner with taunts, barbs and threatening gestures? The cornered party comes out swinging and violence erupts. This is true for individuals, and it is true for nations as well.

Case in point: Iran, which emerged as the ultimate winner of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. While branding the Persian nation as a charter member of the “axis of evil,” the Bush Administration did the Iranian theocrats an enormous favor by removing one of their biggest regional rivals, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Bushies spent the next half-decade blasting the Iranians and refusing to meet with them. Then, after all the hot air proved fruitless, the Bush Administration last month finally dispatched a high-level diplomat to talk to the Iranians about their nuclear capabilities and intentions.

Don’t get your hopes up. Congress, heretofore MIA on exercising any oversight of or fiscal restraint on Bush’s catastrophic foreign policies, now wants to do something. But the best it can muster are idiotic  resolutions in the Senate (S. Res. 580) and the House of Representatives (H. Con. Res. 362).

The House version is especially odious, demanding that “the president initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products, imposing stringent cargo inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program . . .”

In calling for a blockade and for curtailing the country’s diplomats, the House version all but declares war on Iran, even though both resolutions contain language declaring that they don’t grant the president power to declare war on Iran. Maybe not, but Bush hasn’t exactly shown himself attentive to the fine print. This is like waving a red flag in front of a presidential bull only too eager for any pretext to charge into conflict.

Every time the United States shoots its mouth off or makes threats against Iran, like these resolutions, it only reinforces the standing of that country’s hard-liners, who cite it to their people as proof of malevolent American intentions. In other words, this kind of grandstanding pushes the Iranian government even further into a corner and gives it even stronger motivation to respond with force.

War breaks out on the eve of a presidential election and gas hits $10.00 per gallon. Now whose interests do you think that serves? Certainly not the people members of Congress theoretically represent.

Will the grown-ups please regain control of the playground? Are there any adults left in Congress? This isn’t some international game of chicken. We are already trillions in the red with thousands dead from two wars with no way out. Can we really afford to pick yet another fight?

The good news: Resolutions don’t have the force of law. They are symbolic gestures and formal expressions of viewpoints. The bad news: Symbolism trumps reality in politics and international relations. The Iranians and much of the rest of the world will regard these resolutions as yet further proof that the United States is the bully and the aggressor. 

If Congress wants to make a point, how about just doing its job for a change? Investigate war profiteering. Hold the Bush Administration accountable – for its lies about Iraq, its law breaking in the U.S. Justice Department, for its violation of the Geneva Conventions, etc. Put a break on runaway military spending. Tackle a long-term, realistic energy policy that doesn’t give away the store to any special interest. Ditto for health care. There’s an embarrassment of riches when it comes to uncompleted business stuffing the congressional inbox. 

A Congress functioning as the U.S. Constitution outlines, exercising its legitimate oversight and challenging presidential usurpation of power, is the most powerful statement of all. 

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is Column #CT110. Request permission to publish here.