By Maya Schenwar and Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t
A non-binding resolution to demand that President Bush impose "stringent inspection requirements" on trade with Iran - language that leaves the door open for a military blockade - will likely come to the House floor this week, according to sources close to Congressional leadership. The legislation, H.Con.Res.362, which is paralleled by a similar Senate bill, has gained bipartisan support rapidly, with more co-sponsors signing on by the day. Once it hits the floor, it's bound to "pass like a hot knife through butter," a staffer in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office told Chelsea Mozen of the nonprofit Just Foreign Policy.
Trita Parsi, co-founder and president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), concurred, saying passage may happen as early as Tuesday.
"This bill will likely be put on the floor under suspension - meaning that it will pass without even a vote," Parsi told Truthout.
Bills placed under rules of suspension are usually uncontroversial. However, this one is an ominous exception, according to Parsi.
"It sets the stage for a very dangerous escalation," he said.
The most strongly worded section of the legislation is article three, which states: "Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress - (3) demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia
, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program."
The resolution makes no mention of the National Intelligence Estimate report released in December 2007, which found that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003.
The language regarding inspection requirements and restrictions of movement have led critics of the bill to suggest that, if implemented, this type of international sanction would amount to an embargo and would have to be put into place at gunpoint. Such action would be illegal under international law, unless approved by the UN, according to Ethan Chorin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Middle East Program. UN approval is not mentioned in the bill.
Moreover, the resolution would unquestionably send a hostile message to Iran, according to Chorin.
"The Iranians would certainly view this as an act of war, whether or not they acted on it as such," Chorin told Truthout. "All of this would confirm the Gulf Arabs' perceptions that the US is playing an increasingly destabilizing role in the region."
However, despite the new Iran resolution's hard-line language, it counts some of Congress's most liberally voting members among its co-sponsors, including Representative Robert Wexler, an outspoken advocate of impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney; Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, one of Congress's most vocal critics of the Bush administration's missteps; and Representative Jan Schakowsky, rated the most liberal Democrat in Congress by the nonpartisan vote-tracking project GovTrack.
Mozen cites heavy lobbying as one motivation for the resolution's widespread support. The bill was promoted by the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which, according to Parsi, has been the driving force behind its momentum.
" was the top agenda point of the 7,000 AIPAC members who descended on Capitol Hill two weeks ago," Parsi said.
Continued>>>
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34318
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
