This week, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., announced that he would send a letter to President Bush reminding him that the president cannot take any military action against Iran without the approval of Congress.
DeFazio begins the letter by alluding to recent media focus on the possibility of the United States using force to prevent Iran from creating nuclear weapons. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced last week that the country had successfully enriched uranium.
“We are concerned by the growing number of stories that your Administration is planning for military action against Iran,” the letter states. “We are writing to remind you that you are constitutionally bound to seek congressional authorization before launching any preventive military strikes against Iran.”
The letter points out that the Constitution’s framers did not intend the president to have monarchical power over the military. Although the president received a congressional resolution in favor of striking Iraq, that resolution does not extend authorization to the invasion of Iran.
DeFazio’s action was timely, considering that during a press conference Tuesday Bush did not dismiss the threat of a U.S. attack. The president has said that although he hopes to deal with Iran in a diplomatic fashion, “all options are on the table.”
DeFazio is certainly not alone in feeling that recent U.S. threats toward Iran are strikingly similar to statements made about Iraq before we invaded that country, and we know how that turned out: no nuclear weapons, falsely hyped intelligence about biological weapons, a growing international insurgency and a country teetering on the brink of a civil war that threatens to further destabilize the Middle East.
We find it unlikely that Bush would seriously consider using nuclear or conventional force against Iran; he has simply lost too much political capital. And although many Americans would not like to admit it, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq did send a clear cautionary message to Iran that the U.S. will back up its threats. This has not stopped Ahmadinejad from calling for the destruction of Israel, the key U.S. ally in the region, or from continuing to flaunt Iran’s nuclear program. But perhaps it, combined with U.S. nuclear power, will dissuade Ahmadinejad from making rash decisions that provoke international contempt. He also has to face the reality of a nuclear-armed Israel, which certainly has clearer justification for a preemptive strike against Iran than the U.S.
Yet if DeFazio is correct in his assumption that the administration plans to take action in Iran, it is admirable that this Oregon politician has stepped forward to remind the president of U.S. checks and balances. It is of the utmost importance that the president’s war-time role as commander in chief not be allowed to expand into the realm of declaring war.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, it seemed that many members of Congress who sided with Bush in unilaterally attacking Iraq endorsed a policy they might normally have shunned. Spurred by the president’s cries for immediacy however, those politicians agreed to unilateral war.
Although DeFazio was among the minority of congressmen who voted against the war in 2002, we hope other members of Congress have learned their lesson: It doesn’t pay to rush into a heated decision without considering the future ramifications. Now that Bush has indicated an interest in military action against Iran, it is certainly time for Congress to represent the many Americans who oppose further military action in the Middle East.