While we were all distracted by the evisceration of the Constitition, the death of Habeas Corpus, the legalizing of torture, and the retroactive immunity granted to the torturers by Congress - not to mention an inconvenient sex scandal - they slipped a couple more surprises past us in their haste to adjourn and get back to their real business: raising money for their campaigns.
One of these surprises is HR 6198, which was apparently rushed through by both houses without a roll-call vote, so that we must expect there was little or no real opposition. Bush instantly signed the bill into law.
This odious piece of legislation is called the "Iran Freedom Support Act," "To hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran." It extends and amends the existing odious Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 to impose sanctions on any foreign entity that provides goods or services for Iran's weapons programs. This is clearly aimed primarily at Russia, which has been the foremost supporter of Iran's nuclear enrichment program.
This legislation is ill-conceived and ill-timed. As Zmag wrote before the Senate vote:
http://www.zmag.org/...
On Friday the Senate is expected to vote on legislation passed Thursday by the House that would tighten U.S. sanctions on Iran and also tighten sanctions on our allies who trade with Iran - the same allies we are currently relying on to negotiate with Iran. This legislation, if passed, would undermine the talks with Iran that are currently taking place in Europe. Press reports have indicated that the talks in Europe could lead to more substantial negotiations between Iran and the United States. For example, it has recently been reported that Europeans negotiators had suggested that it might not be necessary for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment for talks to begin, and Iranian officials have suggested that they might be willing to consider a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment to enable talks to proceed. Such negotiations would be in the interest of the vast majority of Americans and Iranians who want peace.
Now, these negotiations are torpedoed. The Russian mediation has been cut off at the knees. The forces that have been pressing for war with Iran have been strengthened. We must now take even more seriously the reports of US warships headed for an armed confrontation with Iran.
Symour Hersch has reported http://www.newyorker.com/...
on the neocon pressure being brought to bear against Iran.
"The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible," the government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon told me.
But Hersch has also made it clear that the urgency behind much of this pressure is coming from Israel.
The government consultant with ties to the Pentagon said that the Defense Department civilians, under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran. (After Osirak, Iran situated many of its nuclear sites in remote areas of the east, in an attempt to keep them out of striking range of other countries, especially Israel. Distance no longer lends such protection, however: Israel has acquired three submarines capable of launching cruise missiles and has equipped some of its aircraft with additional fuel tanks, putting Israeli F-16I fighters within the range of most Iranian targets.)
"They believe that about three-quarters of the potential targets can be destroyed from the air, and a quarter are too close to population centers, or buried too deep, to be targeted," the consultant said. Inevitably, he added, some suspicious sites need to be checked out by American or Israeli commando teams--in on-the-ground surveillance--before being targeted.
Reports now make it clear that these teams are already in place. http://www.globalresearch.ca/...
It therefore comes as no surprise to see that the sponsors of HR 6198 in the House are Ilhena Ros-Lehtinen and Tom Lantos [with Hyde and Ackerman] - two of the most reliable AIPAC stooges in Congress. This bill, passed while we weren't watching them, is a wind-up to a combined US/Israel pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, and no one in Congress could be bothered even to stand up and call for a debate.