[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 51 (Friday, March 23, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   CONGRESS MUST STOP ATTACK ON IRAN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 23, 2007

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, I am placing in the Congressional 
Record this op-ed by my constituent Leonard Weiss. Mr. Weiss is a 
senior science fellow at the Center for International and Security 
Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University and a consultant to the 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His research at CISAC includes 
an assessment of the impact on the non-proliferation regime of nuclear 
trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
  This piece, written with his colleague Larry Diamond of Stanford's 
Hoover Institution, recommends that Congress hold hearings to examine 
U.S. policies regarding Iran and suggests a number of options available 
to Congress to address the troubling issue of Iran's nuclear 
activities. We must conduct a healthy debate of all the options at our 
disposal. This article contributes to that important discussion.

               [From Los Angeles Times.Com, Feb. 5, 2007]

                  Congress Must Stop an Attack on Iran

                  (By Leonard Weiss and Larry Diamond)

       Despite anguish and anger over the Bush administration's 
     decision to escalate its failing war in Iraq, Congress is 
     unlikely to cut off funding. Even most opponents of the war 
     fear that they could be blamed for not supporting the troops 
     in the field and for a possible descent into even greater 
     catastrophe in the face of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from 
     Iraq.
       But nothing prevents Congress from using its power of the 
     purse to prevent an American attack on Iran. President Bush's 
     neoconservative advisors and pundit supporters have been 
     beating the drums of war with Iran since 2003, when the 
     president declared Iran to be part of an ``axis of evil.'' 
     Recall that a senior administration official told The Times 
     that Iran should ``take a number'' in the wake of the 
     invasion of Iraq. In his recent address to the nation on the 
     troop surge in Iraq, Bush issued more threats to Iran. Now 
     the president has named a Navy admiral to head the U.S. 
     Central Command and dispatched a second aircraft carrier and 
     minesweepers to the Persian Gulf, presumably to prevent Iran 
     from closing the Strait of Hormuz in the event of conflict.
       These developments and other administration moves could 
     presage an air attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
       Iran is not innocent of dangerous and provocative behavior. 
     Tehran has supported insurgent groups in Iraq, including 
     helping to provide sophisticated explosives that have killed 
     U.S. soldiers. And Iran's continued development of a nuclear 
     enrichment facility is in defiance of the international 
     community's demand to halt those actions. President Mahmoud 
     Ahmadinejad's repulsive statements about the Holocaust and 
     Israel add to the nervousness about Iran's future actions.
       But war is not yet justified, except in the minds of those 
     who have been lobbying for it for years. Iran is still years 
     away from being a nuclear threat, and our experience with 
     ``preventive war'' in Iraq should teach us a thing or two. 
     Launching another such war without international approval 
     would leave us even more politically isolated and militarily 
     overstretched. Attacking a Middle Eastern country--one much 
     stronger than Iraq and with the ability to cut off oil 
     supplies from the Strait of Hormuz--could inflame the region, 
     intensify Shiite militia attacks on our soldiers in Iraq and 
     stimulate terrorist attacks on Americans and U.S. interests 
     worldwide.
       But recklessness, not prudence, has been the hallmark of 
     this administration's foreign policy. Beyond this, the 
     president and vice president subscribe to what some call the 
     ``unitary executive,'' which is a fancy way of saying they 
     believe that Congress cannot prevent the president from doing 
     almost anything he wants. The 1973 War Powers Act, passed in 
     the wake of our disastrous war in Vietnam, allows the 
     president to put U.S. troops in a combat situation under 
     certain conditions before obtaining any congressional 
     authorization to do so. When Bush signed the Iraq war 
     resolution, he issued a statement challenging the 
     constitutionality of the War Powers Act, indicating that he 
     could take the nation to war without obeying its 
     restrictions. Unfortunately, even if the president were to 
     agree to the act's restrictions, he could still attack Iran 
     and have up to 90 days before being required to get 
     congressional authorization for the attack.
       What to do? Congress should not wait. It should hold 
     hearings on Iran before the president orders a bombing attack 
     on its nuclear facilities, or orders or supports a 
     provocative act by the U.S. or an ally designed to get Iran 
     to retaliate, and thus further raise war fever.
       Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate 
     Foreign Relations Committee, has warned the administration 
     that it had better seek congressional authorization for any 
     attack on Iran. But we need Senate and House hearings now to 
     put the Bush administration on notice that, in the absence of 
     an imminent military attack or a verified terrorist attack on 
     the United States by Iran, Congress will not support a U.S. 
     military strike on that country. Those hearings should aim 
     toward passage of a law preventing the expenditure of any 
     funds for a military attack on Iran unless Congress has 
     either declared war with that country or has otherwise 
     authorized military action under the War Powers Act.
       The law should be attached to an appropriations bill, 
     making it difficult for the president to veto. If he simply 
     claims that he is not bound by the restriction even if he 
     signs it into law, and then orders an attack on Iran without 
     congressional authorization for it, Congress should file a 
     lawsuit and begin impeachment proceedings.
       It is, of course, possible that the president's truculent 
     language and actions toward Iran are a bluff, an attempt to 
     rein in its irresponsible behavior.
       But the administration's mendacious and incompetent course 
     of action in taking the nation to war with Iraq gives us no 
     reason to provide the president with the benefit of any 
     doubt. And stiffening economic sanctions--at a time when 
     Iran's economy is ailing and the regime is losing popular 
     support--offers a better and safer prospect of exerting 
     leverage.
       Another war of choice would only pour fuel on the fires of 
     the Middle East. And the history of this administration shows 
     that if Congress does not constrain this president, he could 
     well act recklessly again, in ways that would profoundly 
     damage our national interest.

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