As talk about Iran swelled, plenty of pundits, officials and
politicians rushed to put forth strategy tips. Many, including Bush
Administration members, suggested keeping an invasion on the table.
Last week, another U.S. aircraft carrier headed toward the Persian Gulf.
The deeper question here is whether the administration can make
such a decision alone — while presidents typically lead on foreign
policy matters, the Constitution gives Congress the power to
declare war. The Democrat-controlled House and Senate aren’t likely
to support any Bush military plan.
Sometimes, the executive branch can get around a hesitant
Congress. As Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito once pointed out, a commander-in-chief can wage war
in emergency situations. However, the Iran problem has grown
slowly; barring a drastic event, this line of argument won’t help
Bush and Co.
So rather than focus on the nuclear threat, the administration
has played up Iran’s presence in Iraq. A week and a half ago, after
U.S. forces detained six Iranians, Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice warned that “the United States is not going to
simply stand idly by and let these activities continue.”
Rice has also claimed Iran supports “violent extremists who
destroy the aspirations of innocent Lebanese, Palestinians and
Iraqis.” This seems the bigger issue — even if U.S. officials send
out a press release for every Iranian captured, very few insurgents
come from Iran.
In a report (pdf) called “Iraq and Foreign
Volunteers,” Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies found Iran “a major source of funding and
logistics for militant Shiite groups in Iraq.” But he also cited a
Saudi National Security Assessment Project analysis of 3,000
foreign fighters in Iraq; Iran is lumped in with “other countries”
that contributed a combined 5 percent of them.
Particulars aside, all this Iran-in-Iraq talk worries Joseph
Biden (D-Del. and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee), who fears the Administration could use an Iran-Iraq
link to invade — Congress authorized war with Iraq, and the
president could declare both invasions parts of the same war. Biden
cautioned Rice that, by his interpretation, the Iraq authorization
would not apply to Iran.
Rice declined comment. She shouldn’t have: No one
literate in English could interpret the Iraq authorization to
justify an Iran invasion, and by her own statements nukes, not
Iraq, drive U.S. concerns about Iran.
Here is what the force authorization holds:
(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use
the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be
necessary and appropriate in order to
(1) defend the national security of the United States against
the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council
Resolutions regarding Iraq.
The authorization is, beyond debate, a pre-war endorsement for
invading Iraq and nothing more. It speaks of the threat posed by
Iraq to the United States, not that of any country to Iraq. And
Bush can enforce Security Council Resolutions “regarding Iraq.”
This document can hardly be taken to guarantee a prolonged Iraq
occupation — indeed, it doesn’t; Congress can pull funding — much
less an invasion of Iran on the grounds of a threat to Iraq.
Speaking of that threat, the shift toward it, and away from
nuclear weapons, is politically expedient but difficult for even
Rice to keep straight. One sentence after alleging Iranian support
for “violent extremists,” she tied U.S. policy to the nuclear
program, and to the nuclear problem alone: “I repeat an offer that
I’ve made several times, today. If Iran suspends its uranium
enrichment — which is an international demand, not just an
American one — then the United States is prepared to reverse 27
years of policy.”
Attacking Iran may or may not be the best possible move in this
situation. But the administration will have to focus on the
country’s nuclear ambitions, not the threat to Iraq, to convince
Congress and the American people.
