Collision Course With Iran
By Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich
President Bush has claimed the Iranian government is supplying deadly weapons to fighters in Iraq and that those weapons are being used to kill US troops in Iraq. This sounds horrific and frightening–and that is the point. The Administration is preparing for a military strike against Iran. The justification chosen by the Administration is the one circumstance in which a President could bypass Congress and still wage a military conflict.

The intelligence backing up these assertions is questionable. The sources were anonymous. Since the briefing, the Administration has backed away from the assertion made by Pentagon briefers the day before that Tehran was behind these weapons transfers. No new evidence has been presented. But the President, the Defense Secretary and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all repeat the questionable assertions.

The newly claimed grievance with Iran could be used to satisfy section 2(c) of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which states that the President can introduce armed forces into a conflict or a national emergency created by an attack upon the armed forces. The President seems to have laid the groundwork for an attack on Iran while avoiding Congressional approval.

This Administration has set a collision course with Iran. Time and again, it has refused to enter into direct diplomatic talks with Iran.

• After the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the Iranian government signaled to the Administration a willingness to cooperate with the United States, including cooperation with the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But in January 2002, President Bush labeled Iran a member of the “axis of evil” in his State of the Union address.

• In early 2003, Iran offered to enter into dialogue with the United States regarding several outstanding US-Iran issues, including full transparency of all nuclear facilities; the cessation of support of Palestinian opposition groups; transformation of Hezbollah into a political organization; coordination of counterterrorism efforts; cooperation with political stabilization in Iraq; and the acceptance of the Arab League “Beirut Declaration”–a comprehensive peace, including the establishment of normal relations with Israel. The United States did not respond to this “grand bargain” offered by Iran.

• Also in 2003, the United States refused to join France, Britain and Germany (the EU-3) in a diplomatic effort to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

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