Trita Parsi’s NIAC just sent me an e-mail message with the delightful news that Sen. Lindsey Graham plans to declare war on Iran. Well, he can’t actually do that since he’s just a senator and that’s a job reserved for the president. But that doesn’t seem to stop him from trying. Here’s what he wrote:
“If nothing changes in Iran, come September, October, I will present a resolution that will authorize the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb,” Senator Graham told a cheering audience at the “Christians United for Israel” conference earlier today.
Leave aside the fact that Graham was posturing for the uber-settler audience at the CUFI conference (Israel certainly is delighted with Graham’s saber-rattling). Leave aside that Graham doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting the Obama administration to go to war against Iran. Leave aside that Graham cynically exploits a sham issue in order to score points for the GOP. Once you leave all that garbage aside, what do you have left? Precious little.
But there is always the possibility that poseurs like Graham can inadvertently cause great damage and maneuver an administration into a position or policy it never intended. This is how Lyndon Johnson got himself neck-deep in the Big Muddy of Vietnam. By the time Tonkin Gulf incident occurred and Johnson committed himself to full-scale intervention in Vietnam, it was already too late.
But it’s not yet too late to step back from the abyss Lindsey Graham wants to us to jump into with eyes wide shut. 131 members of Congress signed the Dent-Price letter to the president urging him to take this opportunity to engage Iran’s new leadership creatively. The statement also urged the administration to stop thinking of sanctions as an effective tool against that country.
No doubt Aipac has already cooked up a letter urging even more draconian approaches to Iran and it will have even more signers (perhaps including a few who signed on with Dent-Price). But for now this statement is having its moment in the sun. A well-deserved one.
Technically the job of “declaring war” is reserved for the Congress by the Constitution. Substantively it’s obvious that Presidents have led the US into war in the modern era. But it’s useful to stay correct. And you don’t think that Johnson intended to make a commitment to Vietnam? He sure acted like it.
Hello Richard
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Best regards
Serge
Sometimes Sen. Graham is more moderate than that. Because the wee state of Russia has a temerity of not delivering Edward Snowden in a nicely wrapped package, the senior Senator from North Carolina proposed to boycott Olympic Games. It is actually a somewhat related issue, because the aftermath of a putative attack on Iran depends on the reactions from Russia and China. Basically, if those two states strongly oppose such an attack, they may assure Iran of a sufficient degree of backing in case their retaliate, e.g. by closing Hormuz, or if they simply declare all sanctions on Iran null and void in the face of aggression, give Iran access to their banking system, insurance etc. and dare USA to impose retaliatory sanctions.
I think that indeed Russia and China issued some threats like that because Administration members are on the record explaining that a rush attack on Iran may “crumble the sanction regime”. I do not know who else has the means to do that crumbling.
The above comment is well taken. The situation is far more precarious than those in the beltway imagine:
First, were Israel to bomb Iran it is doubtful that they would limit their sorties to the insulated nuclear facilities. They could be expected to expand to Iran’s oil pipelines and refineries This would have the following results: Since CNPC and Sinopec are developing two of the largest oil fields in Iran, there would be the issue of direct confrontation with China. Since Russia and Iran are essentially the largest natural gas producers in the world, the resultant situation would place Russia in the driver’s seat as regards world natural gas prices. This would directly negatively effect the tottering EU economies pushing them to insolvency, as well as effecting global energy markets. Since Iran has the fourth largest crude oil reserves, the impact on per barrel oil prices would also sky rocket. Bombing Iran is not the “surgical operation” envisioned by Graham, Netanyahu, McCain et. al. Sanctions are simply fusing Iran to China, India, and Russia and most likely these countries will continue to become ever stronger trading partners. In this case, who pays the piper? Not only people in the EU but the average Israeli and US citizens who see the cost of living rachet up through the ceiling, paralleling energy costs. Under these circumstances, the US would be in no position to launch a follow up land war as would be necessary – the country would be openly insolvent and China would own us.