Guess Who Wants to "Micromanage" the President's Policy on Iran?

04.13.2007

Robert Naiman

I know, I know. Accusing Members of Congress of being inconsistent is kind of like telling a rock that it needs to get more exercise. A knowledgeable Congressional staffer once told me: "The first rule of Congress is that if Members have the opportunity to vote opposite ways on the same issue, they will."

Still: a key argument being deployed by Republicans against the Democratic effort to compel the President to accept a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is that Democrats want to "micromanage" the President's policy in Iraq.

These same Republicans - and some Democrats - have opposed or failed to support a provision reaffirming that the President needs explicit Congressional authorization if he wants to attack Iran. They don't want to "tie the President's hands."

Now the American Israel Public Affairs Committee - the same folks who lobbied to remove the provision against an illegal attack on Iran from the supplemental - is pushing to strengthen unilateral U.S. sanctions against Iran. Guess what their proposed legislation - H.R. 1400 and S. 970 - would do? It would micromanage the President and tie his hands.

Two provisions of the bills stand out.

First, they would remove existing waiver authority. That would mean that if U.S. diplomats were negotiating with the Europeans, Russia, and China over sanctions at the UN, they couldn't offer to relax unilateral U.S. sanctions [quite controversial abroad since they cover the foreign affiliates of U.S. companies] in one area in order to get multilateral sanctions in another area that might be more effective. It also means that U.S. diplomats couldn't offer to relax sanctions in order to achieve a particular diplomatic goal, like restoring full access of UN inspectors to Iranian nuclear facilities.

Second, they would impose unilateral sanctions on Russia for its nuclear cooperation with Iran. The penalty would be ending U.S. nuclear cooperation with Russia until Russia ends nuclear cooperation with Iran - something Russia is very unlikely to do. What's really bizarre about this is that the U.S. cooperates with Russia in the nuclear field not out of altruism but to achieve U.S. nonproliferation goals in Russia. This would qualify as "cutting off your nose to spite your face."

Guess who is supporting the AIPAC Iran sanctions bill? You can check the list of 128 House co-sponsors here and 19 Senate co-sponsors here.

Compare this with the list of 88 House members and 3 Senators who have co-sponsored resolutions against attacking Iran and/or for talking with Iran.

Some highlights:

Senators Durbin, Dodd, Brownback, Mikulski, Coleman, Lautenberg, and Smith won't "tie the Presidents hands" to prevent an illegal military attack on Iran, but they are happy to "tie the President's hands" on unilateral sanctions that may undermine diplomacy.

Reps. Lewis and Pallone - Members of the Out of Iraq Caucus - are co-sponsors of the AIPAC bill but haven't co-sponsored any bill against a military attack.

Check to see where your representatives stand, and send them a note, politely sharing your views.

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READ MORE: United States, Iran, Russia, Iraq, U.S. Republican Party, U.S. Congress, U.S. Democratic Party, United Nations

Robert Naiman is National Coordinator of Just Foreign Policy, a membership organization devoted to reforming U.S. foreign policy to reflect the values and serve the interests of the majority of Americans. Naiman edits the daily Just Foreign Policy news summary.
JFP's web site is www.justforeignpolicy.org.