Yesterday, I wrote that if Members of Congress are serious about barring the President from attacking Iran without Congressional authorization, they should agree to Senator Webb's proposal to attach language barring such an attack to the supplemental appropriation being considered. Such language, I argued, will be next to impossible to pass as a freestanding bill, because it would have to surmount a potential filibuster and a veto, and the votes aren't there for cloture, certainly not to override. To have a chance at becoming law, this legislation - S.759 - must be attached to "must pass" legislation like the supplemental. So far the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, while speaking favorably of Webb's legislation, has not committed to attach it to the supplemental.
Today the House Democratic leadership announced their Iraq strategy for the supplemental. The strategy is to impose a final deadline of August 2008 for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq, with the threat that the deadline will be moved up if the President fails to certify that the Iraqi government has met the security and reconciliation benchmarks that the President set forward, including passing a law for the equitable sharing of oil revenues so that the Sunnis can't be cut out, reforming the de-Baathification law so that former government employees who were only nominal Baath Party members - like teachers - can work again, and reforming the process of amending the Constitution, so that the Sunni minority will have an effective say.
The Democrats' announcement drew an immediate veto threat from the White House.
Showdown.
In this context, there is no earthly reason not to attach the Webb language to the supplemental. There's no telling now what the final outcome will be, what will survive in the final legislative outcome from this confrontation between Congress and the President. But if the prohibition against an unauthorized attack is included in the supplemental sent to the President, it may well survive in the final outcome. Of course, if it is not included, there is no chance it will appear in the final outcome.
It's too early to be certain whether the leadership can carry the legislation they've proposed through the House. But presumably, they've done some serious canvassing in all fractions of the Democratic caucus, so it seems reasonable to guess that what gets passed will be something close to what the leadership has proposed. Certainly, the leadership has predicted that this strategy would draw a veto threat, so they are explicitly looking at passing a bill that the White House will threaten to veto, and may indeed veto.
Therefore, adding the Webb language will in no way alter the political dynamics. It will not expose the Democrats to any risk that they are not already taking. It will not expose them to new charges of micromanaging the President.
Constitutionally, the Webb language is a straightforward proposition. The Constitution gives Congress the sole and exclusive power to declare war. By enacting the Webb language, the Congress would simply be reasserting its Constitutional powers.
The public is against a war with Iran, so there is no political liability in terms of public opinion.
And in terms of leverage with Iran, nothing would be lost. The Webb language would not even completely remove the threat of an unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran. It would simply remove the threat of an unprovoked attack on Iran without Congressional approval.
A threat that you are not prepared to carry out is no threat. And a threat to commit a war crime - which is what an unprovoked attack on Iran would be - is itself a war crime. The U.S. has much greater leverage with Iran by pursuing multilateral diplomacy, relying on common interests with Iran in stabilizing Iraq, common interests with Europe and the Security Council in bringing Iran's nuclear program under effective international scrutiny, and common interests with Iran and our Gulf allies in stabilizing Lebanon and the Palestinian government. Threatening Iran with military force destabilizes the situation; it complicates diplomacy, rather than contributing to it.
Of course, the Administration is going to have a very heavy lift to convince Congress to authorize a pre-emptive attack on Iran, and that's the point. It should have a heavy lift. Launching a war in violation of international law is a grave and serious thing. It should not be undertaken lightly, as it was in the case of Iraq, with devastating consequences.
Almost all the attention is now focused on what the Congress is going to do with respect to Iraq. That is completely understandable. But the supplemental should not pass without due consideration of language barring an attack on Iran without Congressional authorization.
You can ask your Senator to support attaching Senator Webb's language to the supplemental here: