Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) were among the 100 members of Congress of both parties who recently signed a letter to President Obama asking him to seek House and Senate blessing for his proposed retaliation against the Syrian dictator. But while Bachmann and Gohmert have made it clear they will oppose the use of force against Damascus now, they had no issue with saber-rattling towards Tehran in 2010. Along with the other 42 members of the House Tea Party caucus, they proposed a resolution which "supports using all means of persuading the Government of Iran to stop building and acquiring nuclear weapons" and declared:
[S]upport for Israel's right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran, defend Israeli sovereignty, and protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within a reasonable time.
Aside from Rand Paul (who praised Bashar al-Assad's protection of Christians), the likely entrants in the
2016 GOP presidential race have largely been silent on President Obama's proposed authorization for the use of force (AUMF) against Syria. But when it comes to Iran,
Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have taken the same hard line. As the American Conservative posited, "it seems likely that they would oppose military strikes on Iran only if they were launched without consulting Congress."
But it's not just Republicans seemingly eager for confrontation with Iran. Just days after President Rouhani's inauguration in Tehran boosted hopes for a compromise with the U.S., the House by a 400 to 20 vote rebuffed the White House in passing a resolution calling for even harsher sanctions on Iranian oil exports. In September 2012, the Senate voted 90 to 1 for a nonbinding resolution rejecting containment as U.S. policy and accepting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's much lower "capability" threshold for military action. But not content to rule out "any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran," a coalition of Senators led by Lindsey Graham and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has also proposed a new resolution essentially green-lighting an Israeli assault on Iran and guaranteeing U.S. intervention. That resolution:
Urges that if Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States will stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.
Last year, former Defense Secretary
Robert Gates had this to say about the prospect of a U.S. blank check for unilateral Israel action:
"That would be worse than us doing it. Because I think that then has lots of regional complications that may end up in a much larger Middle East conflict. So I think that would be worse."
Either way, the aftermath of strikes against Iran could be staggering. At a minimum,
thousands of Iranian civilians would die in an American attack against Tehran's nuclear installations. (Even if the Israelis alone launch a strike against Iran's nuclear sites, Tehran will almost certainly hit back against U.S. targets in the Straits of Hormuz, in the region, possibly in Europe and even potentially in the American homeland. And Israel would face certain retaliation from Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon and Hamas missiles raining down from Gaza.) Last November, the Federation of American Scientists estimated that a U.S. campaign of air strikes would
cost the global economy $700 billion; a full-scale invasion could have a total impact of $1.7 trillion. Two months earlier, a bipartisan report including signatories Brent Scowcroft, retired Admiral William Fallon, former Republican Senator (now Pentagon chief) Chuck Hagel, retired General Anthony Zinni and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering warned Americans about the
cost of trying to eliminate the Iranian nuclear program once and for all:
A unilateral Israeli attack would set back the Iranian nuclear program by only 2 years and an American attack by 4 years. But if the objective is "ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear bomb," the U.S. "would need to conduct a significantly expanded air and sea war over a prolonged period of time, likely several years." In order to achieve regime change, the report says, "the occupation of Iran would require a commitment of resources and personnel greater than what the U.S. has expended over the past 10 years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined."
To be sure, even limited American strikes on Syria could produce
blowback, either from the
Assad regime or its
Hezbollah allies. Whether that comes to pass may now largely depend on
which Republican urge—to lash out against President Assad or to humiliate President Obama—proves more powerful. Regardless, war with Iran over nuclear weapons it has neither used nor yet developed would be orders of magnitude worse. Nevertheless, should negotiations with Tehran falter, that is a course most in Congress seem ready to endorse if and when the time comes.
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