A Look at the Two Recent Policies of the US Congress Regarding Iran

Last week in the U.S. Congress, two pieces of legislation were reviewed that are related to Iran. The first of them decreases the importance of a diplomatic solution in dealing with Iran; in this way, it also decreases the obstacles for war. The second legalizes the military option against Iran and military-readiness actions for this purpose.

The first plan, by the name of House Resolution 568, is a simple resolution proposed by members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 29, 2012 and was finally approved on May 17. In Section 7 of this resolution — which was approved by a vote of 401 in favor, 11 opposed and 10 abstaining — the U.S. president is called upon to reemphasize the unacceptability of an Iran equipped with nuclear military capability and to oppose any kind of containment policy as an option for dealing with enrichment in Iran.

Using such language guarantees the failure of negotiations that are supposed to take place on May 23. The current policy of the U.S. says that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon. However, in the aforementioned resolution there is language that takes drawing the red line for military action from Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon to the “capability” of nuclear armament. One could easily interpret such an ambiguous and undefined phrase as they wish to include a civilian nuclear program as well.

In reality, it is possible that negotiating with Iran in order to prevent this country from obtaining nuclear weapons, and thereby preventing war, necessitates accepting peaceful enrichment in Iran as defined in the regulations of the NPT. Anyway, such resolutions make it impossible to find a peaceful solution through negotiations.

In this regard, the language used in this resolution decreases barriers for engaging in war against Iran. Nations with nuclear weapons “capability” include many other nations, like Japan or Brazil. This demonstrates that this definition is stated very unrealistically.

Colin Powell, former U.S. secretary of state, said that the resolution “reads like the same sheet of music that got us into the Iraq War.”

It is necessary to mention that simple resolutions in the House of Representatives do not have the force of law and are not referred to the president for implementation.

The second piece of legislation is part of the National Defense Authorization Act — the abbreviated name of which is H.R. 4310 for fiscal year 2013 — which is part of the budget bills. This bill was provided on Mar. 28, 2012 to the House of Representatives, who passed it on May 18 by a vote of 299 in favor, 120 opposed and 12 abstaining, and then sent it to the Senate. If it passes the Senate, this bill becomes law and is submitted to the president for implementation.

In Section 1221 of this law, military action against Iran would become the policy of the U.S. government. In addition, the order is given to the U.S. military to prepare for war.

In the second part of Section 1222, an address to the secretary of Defense states:

(A) pre-positioning sufficient supplies of aircraft, munitions, fuel, and other materials for both air- and sea-based missions at key forward locations in the Middle East and Indian Ocean;

(B) maintaining sufficient naval assets in the region necessary to signal United States resolve and to bolster United States capabilities to launch a sustained sea and air campaign against a range of Iranian nuclear and military targets, to protect seaborne shipping and to deny Iranian retaliation against United States interests in the region.

In any case, the aforementioned resolution alongside the National Defense Authorization Act provides the grounds for military action against Iran by the U.S. government through Congress.

However, it seems that this legislation has been planned with the intent of influencing negotiations and pressuring Iran on the eve of talks in Baghdad.