Posted on 09/25/2007 11:12:13 AM PDT by MNJohnnie
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress signaled its disapproval of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a vote Tuesday to tighten sanctions against his government and a call to designate his army a terrorist group.
The swift rebuke was a rare display of bipartisan cooperation in a Congress bitterly divided on the Iraq war. It reflected lawmakers' long-standing nervousness about Tehran's intentions in the region, particularly toward Israel—a sentiment fueled by the pro-Israeli lobby whose influence reaches across party lines in Congress.
"Iran faces a choice between a very big carrot and a very sharp stick," said Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is my hope that they will take the carrot. But today, we are putting the stick in place."
The House passed, by a 397-16 vote, a proposal by Lantos, D-Calif., aimed at blocking foreign investment in Iran, in particular its lucrative energy sector. The bill would specifically bar the president from waiving U.S. sanctions.
Current law imposes sanctions against any foreign company that invests $20 million or more in Iran's energy industry, although the U.S. has waived or ignored sanction laws in exchange for European support on nonproliferation issues.
In the Senate, Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., proposed a nonbinding resolution urging the State Department to label Iran's military—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—a terrorist organization.
The Bush administration had already been planning to blacklist a unit within the Revolutionary Guard, subjecting part of the vast military operation to financial sanctions.
The legislative push came a day after Ahmadinejad defended Holocaust revisionists, questioned who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and declared homosexuals didn't exist in Iran in a tense question-and- answer session at Columbia University.
The Iranian president planned to speak Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly.
Lantos' bill was expected to draw criticism from U.S. allies in Europe. During a visit to Washington last week, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told lawmakers that France opposes any U.S. legislation that would target European countries operating in Iran. He argued that such sanctions could undermine cooperation on dealing with Iran.
They don’t have the advantage of multiparty elections.
Well, he does have a cogent, coherent foreign policy, but it is just one you disagree with.
You know his foreign policy, the basis of which is to be non interventionist. That is just the opposite of the foreign policy advocated by the neocons.
Irving Crystal
“Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from nondemocratic forces, external or internal. That is why it was in our national interest to come to the defense of France and Britain in World War II. That is why we feel it necessary to defend Israel today, when its survival is threatened. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary.”
Do you really think we should get involved in civil wars in other countries?
Now we think radical Islam is our major enemy, but we helped radical Islam in Bosnia/Kosovo.
We should be committed to defending any democracy around the world without regard to our national interest?? Defending any democracy is inherently in our national interest??
How about defending freedom of religion? The monks are marching in Burma right now, should we help them??
As you know, Ron Paul would get out of NATO, SEATO, NAFTA, GATT, etc. His detractors like to call him an isolationist, but that is not his view. He voted for sending the troops to Afghanistan, because he felt that was in our national interest.
It seems reasonable to me that our foreign policy would be based on our national interests.
Yup...
Plus unlike the Nazis did to the Communist, the Paulnuts can’t kick our ass. Mom won’t let them.
LOL
Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the use of force or the use of the United States Armed Forces against Iran.
You know that they will run out and find themselves a Clinton appointed judge and have the action(s) stopped and tie it up in court because they can say that they didn't authorize the use of military forces in any capacity. And in fact took the pains to point it out in the text of the bill.
I agree that this could be changed with another bill authorizing force. But as this stands I see it as a weapon to be pulled out when action is eventually taken against Iran.
My answer would be "nothing they wouldn't do had this bill not been voted". The bill doesn't change anything. The Democrats would have a hissy-fit whether Bush bombs Iran or not; with - or without - this bill. Even without this bill they'd rant about Congress having the say so in declaring war. So, I see little affect on Bush from this. You do. So, we see it differently.
Bush is still CInC. He is still accountable for defending the country. This bill is really meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
Slight hyperbola.
****We thought (as did almost every other civilized nation) that Saddam Hussein had WMD. I understand that isolationists think that WMDs cannot breach the invisible Constitutional wall around the United States, but that’s naivete on display. Thus our involvement in Iraq. If you want to believe that we made up things to go into Iraq, you have to believe that the rest of the world was a willing participant in the farce. Hard to swallow.****
Yeah, I noticed ALL? our NATO allies were in Iraq.
You would also have to wonder why our intelligence was so faulty. None found. No real evidence that they were shipped out of the country.
India, Pakistan, China, N. Korea, Russia, Israel, France, etc. have WMD, which one should we attack next?
N. Korea has even threatened to use them.
This is the best comment on this thread, possible the best comment posted on FreeRepublic this day, maybe even the best comment I have read all year.
Thank you sir! I aim to please.
Or is it your contention that RP is now the only "Real Republican"
Who cares what congressman created it, it says the right thing. Paul is on the wrong side, again.
Amazing words also from a "man" (Tom Lantos) who appeared such a perfect spherical a##hole on the Petraeus hearing.
***This is a talking point of Iraq detractors. It is also untrue.****
I looked through your links, but didn’t have time to read them completely yet. (The last one didn’t work.)
I did get a kick out of the Weekly Standard article. It made the claim that the administration was not releasing the information piecemeal because some media might cherry pick the information to discredit the war. Then they go on to say “11” unnamed sources in the administration had told them that Iraq was involved with terrorists. As if a neocon magazine would not support the policies of the war movement, being that neocons were a very vocal group arguing for the war.
There was also a startling admission in one of the articles which said something like, “As wrong as we were about WMD ...”
Don’t you think it a bit strange, given the unpopularity of the war, that the administration has not released any papers or actual evidence to back up the connection with terrorism??
What makes you think this information is any more accurate than the information about the WMD?
Interests or national security? and How?
Tell me how Israel bombing Iraq’s reactor in 81, while we were supporting Saddam as a surrogate for us against Iran, was in our interests?
We ended that fairly quickly. Then it wasn’t until 1917 that we fought a war as allies with other countries.
The mutual defence treaty with France excepted, of course.
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