A couple weeks ago, I posted a diary about HR 362, a very problematic “sense of Congress” resolution dealing with Iran.  The resolution is problematic for two reasons: (1) the “whereas” statements at the beginning reads like a list of talking point from the Bush administration about Iran, and like all Bush talking point contains unsubstantiated and outright false claims (see here for more details), and (2) the resolution calls on the president to take steps towards an economic blockade of Iran, which would under international law be an act of war.

Lacy Clay, after meeting with a group of constituents and discussing the matter with his staff, decided to withdraw his name from the list of sponsors for the bill.  To the great credit of Clay and his staff, the office apparently realized just how inflammatory the language of the resolution really was.  I am sad to report, however, that Russ Carnahan is not quite as clear thinking on the matter.  Join me below the flip for a bit more on the story…

Last Thursday, a group of concerned citizens from the St. Louis area visited Carnahan’s office to have a video conference with the Representative.  Though I had been at the meeting with Clay a couple weeks ago, I was not able to attend this meeting, so my reports are admittedly second hand.  However, I think they are reflective of the prevailing mindset of the huge number of Democrats who have signed on as supporters of this bill.

From what I hear, it sounds like Carnahan had two particularly bizarre claims.  First, he suggested that this bill would actually prevent war with Iran, rather than provoke it.  However, as noted above, the bill explicitly asks Bush to take steps towards an economic blockade that would be an act of war under international law, and certainly would be considered as such by Iran.  Furthermore, by demanding that the President take this action (albeit in conjunction with “the international community”), the congress is laying the groundwork for the president to claim that they supported his actions if he chooses to engage in escalatory actions against Iranian imports and exports.  Furthermore, it provides explicit agreement with Bush talking points like the claim that Iran is “covertly” pursuing nuclear weapons.  These claims are simply false since there is no evidence that Iran is capable of producing weapons-grade uranium, and because Iran has been acting in compliance with the IAEA.  But if Congress uncritically grants the Bush claims about Iranian WMDs, just like they did his claims about Iraqi WMDs, they’re not going to have much ground to stand on when the war-mongers claim we need to act in order to protect the world.

Second, Carnahan apparently said he did not want to quibble about semantics.  Huh?  If the resolution expresses the “sense of Congress”, you’d think they’d want to get the language right.  I outlined above why I think the language is dangerous, but I think there’s something more going on here.  It appears to me that some group is pushing this bill very strongly as something that it’s not; namely as  a statement of moderation.  It appears to me that Carnahan and many of the Democrats who are supporting the bill just accepted that story about the bill and didn’t bother to think very carefully about the actual language involved.  Demanding a blockade is not a moderate step, so the fact that this group continues to claim that it is “moderation” strongly suggests that they just aren’t really paying that close of attention to the language.  If they are playing close attention, then they thus far have provided no explanation for why they would include a call for a blockade.

Please take action on this bill by contacting Carnahan’s office and telling him to withdraw his name from the list of co-sponsors.  This is not the time to be calling on the Bush administration to be more militarily aggressive towards Iran.