As I have diaried before, Kyl-Lieberman was a mallet in the drumbeat for war with Iran. While it didn't enact change the law in any way, it gave Bush several juicy findings of fact and recommendations that could independently justify an attack on Iran or could allow him to do so via prior legislation such as the Iraq War Resolution.
Yesterday legislation that was introduced that would wipe out any justification for war that Kyl-Lieberman provided. Second chances are rare in life, and should not be missed.
Harry Reid allowed votes on Moveon and Kyl-Lieberman. If he doesn't arrange a vote on preventing war with Iran, he should not only be removed as Majority Leader but also change parties.
The text of this resolution, S.J.Res. 23, may be found here.
Its preamble:
Clarifying that the use of force against Iran is not authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, any resolution previously adopted, or any other provision of law.
We've had plenty of people trying to clarify this for us. Senator Kyl insists that Kyl-Lieberman didn't have an eye towards war with Iran, and asked "[D]o they not trust Joe Lieberman?"
Ha!
No, I trust a vote of the Senate to 'clarify' that.
The bill notes that, as per Kyl-Lieberman, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have been designated as a terrorist organization--something Bush could have done anyways (in that sense, the Senate was providing an advance, gratuitous rubber stamp).
The actual sense of the Senate language is short and to the point:
Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled
That nothing in the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq (Public Law 107-243), any act that serves as the statutory authority for the Executive Order 13382 or Executive Order 13224, any resolution previously adopted, or any other provision of law including the terms of Executive Order 13382 or Executive Order 13224 shall be construed to authorize, encourage, or in any way address the use of the Armed Forces of the United States against Iran.
Harry Reid had damn well better allow a vote on this. If he found a way to schedule a vote on Moveon and a vote to encourage war with Iran, he certainly can find time to arrange a vote on preventing a catastrophic war.
And, it should be noted that this bill is complementary, not a competitor, to Senator Webb's bill cutting off funding for certain military actions against Iran and his recent letter this week. As this excellent diary notes:
If our forces are currently authorized to be in Iraq to stablize Iraqi Democracy, and if the President believes it is necessary to use military force against the IRG or Iranian targets to prevent their destabilization of the Iraqi government, then arguably the K-L Amendment extends the IWR military mission and implicit authority to include an attack on Iranian targets to prevent the destablization of our "authorized" purpose.
The Webb Amendment, S. 759 (later co-sponsored by Sen. Clinton), prohibits the use of funds for any military action against Iran, except "pursuant to a specific authorization of Congrsss." The text of the Webb Amendment states that such specific authorization must be in the form of a statute enacted after the date the Webb Amendment is enacted.
That last provision is important: if the Webb Amendment passes, it denies funding for any military action against Iran (except to repel a direct attack or thwart an "imminent" attack from Iran) except as authorized, and any such authority must be new authority, not the IWR.
The exceptions to the Webb Amendment, however, create a loophole that dovetails with the K-L Amendment. If the IRG is making bomb components, for example, inside Iranian territory, and then exporting those components to its Shiite Militant proxies inside Iraq to destablize the Iraqi state, then the Webb Amendment's limitation on the use of funds does not apply.
Moreover, although the Webb Amendment ostensibly denies funds for military actions against Iran, it does not explicitly deny the legal authority of the President to attack Iran. As a matter of politics, we've all seen how much difficulty Congress has with "not supporting the troops" by "cutting funding." With the billions of dollars sloshing around Iraq unaccounted for, the prohibition on the use of funds by the military to attack Iran is a bit quaint, as if a green eyeshade wearing accountant is going to stop a Four-Star General from obeying a direct order from the CinC.
Moreover, the Webb letter which has been signed by an ecletic mix of Democrats not including Joe Biden, Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, or Barack Obama contains a couple of gaping loopholes. It only 'clarifies' Kyl-Lieberman as failing to authorize or encourage 'unilateral' or 'offensive' actions. Those are gigantic loopholes. Bush talks about his 30-nation coalition in Iraq. Put a Polish copilot in one of the planes (never forget Poland) and you've got multilateral action. And spinning an attack on Iran as 'defensive' is laughably easy, thanks to the findings from Kyl-Lieberman, which decries Iran's killing of US soldiers in Iraq. The danger of the Webb letter, in short, is that its failure to rule out ALL attacks on Iran is an implicit acknowledgement that some attacks on Iran are addressed by Kyl-Lieberman.
This new resolution eliminates all doubt. No hedges, no categories of attacks singled out, not wishy-washiness. It flatly states that Bush has no authority to attack Iran.
Okay, Harry. Do your damn job.
Contact Harry Reid and tell him to allow a vote on this resolution, S.J.Res.23.
http://reid.senate.gov/...
Here is a list of other members of the Democratic Senate leadership team:
http://democrats.senate.gov/...
P.S. When a House version gets introduced, I'll include links for House Leadership too.