"Cheney's Fondest Pipe Dream" Passes in The Senate

Posted by Steve Benen at 12:01 PM on September 26, 2007.

This post, written by Steve Benen, originally appeared on The Carpetbagger Report

Yesterday, the Senate was poised to vote on a non-binding resolution, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), to get the chamber on record supporting some aggressive language towards Iran. The measure was, as Josh Marshall described it, a building block towards an eventual military confrontation with Tehran, following the same pattern established by neocons on Iraq (as per the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act).

In the 11th hour, the Lieberman-Kyl measure was pulled, so that proponents could give the language a little touch-up. It came back today, and passed fairly easily.

The Kyl-Lieberman Iran amendment -- which ratchets up the confrontation with Iran by calling for the designation of its armed forces a terrorist organization responsible for killing U.S. troops -- just passed overwhelmingly, 76-22.

Of the Dem Presidential candidates, Hillary voted for the measure, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd opposed it, and Barack Obama missed the vote. On the GOP side, John McCain missed the vote.

To be sure, the revised version is preferable to the original. Two offending paragraphs, in particular, were omitted entirely, including the notion that "it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies."

Indeed, the original resolution also included language that the Senate would "support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments," as part of our drive to "combat" Iran's "destabilizing influence."

As foreign-affairs resolutions go, this was pretty strong language, and would set a dangerous precedent. As Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) said, "At best, it's a deliberate attempt to divert attention from a failed diplomatic policy. At worst, it could be read as a backdoor method of gaining congressional validation for military action, without one hearing and without serious debate." He added that Lieberman-Kyl "is Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream."

So, the good news is, the most offensive language is gone. The bad news is, the resolution is still a bad idea, and it's disappointing to see it pass so easily.

Webb opposed the revised version, too, noting that it designates the Iranian guard a terrorist organization. The measure specifically says:

"The United States should designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization...and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists."

If the Senate is on board with this, and it clearly is, it's hardly a stretch to think Bush could use this as cover to confront Iranian forces militarily under the guise of counter-terrorism.

Perhaps hoping to make the bill slightly more palatable to skeptics, the revised version also included an entirely new paragraph:

"Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated on September 16, 2007 that "I think that the administration believes at this point that continuing to try and deal with the Iranian threat, the Iranian challenge, through diplomatic and economic means is by the preferable approach. That the one we are using. We always say all options are on the table, but clearly, the diplomatic and economic approach is the one that we are pursuing."

Yeah, and they said the same thing about Iraq.

Sen. Dodd, who also opposed the measure, responded:

I cannot support the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on Iran. To do so could give this President a green light to act recklessly and endanger US national security. We learned in the run up to the Iraq war that seemingly nonbinding language passed by this Senate can have profound consequences. We need the president to use robust diplomacy to address concerns with Iran, not the language in this amendment that the president can point to if he decides to draw this country into another disastrous war of choice. [...]

We shouldn't repeat our mistakes and enable this President again.

Here's the roll call. Among the votes to note, Clinton sided with the majority, which came as a bit of a surprise, and two conservative Republicans -- Sens. Lugar (Ind.) and Hagel (Neb.) -- voted against it.

Tagged as: kyl, lieberman, iran, cheney, dodd, webb

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.