Would Lieberman-Kyl Resolution Give Bush and Cheney Cover for Bombing Iran?

[babsbunny]

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001747.html

Threatening Lieberman-Kyl Amendment On Iran

Amazingly, no one anywhere in the US media seems to have noticed that yesterday Jon Kyl (Arizona) and Joe Lieberman filed an extremely threatening amendment on Iran to the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill. I guess all their time was taken up with the earth-shakingly important issue of newspaper ads.

It's a "Sense of the Senate" resolution, which means it has no legal force, but as the Congressional Research Service will tell you, "foreign governments pay close attention to as evidence of shifts in U.S. foreign policy priorities." If you want you can read it yourself (.doc), but here are the most important paragraphs:

[TwilightGardener]

1. I doubt it--but what it does is make it harder for Congress to draft

and pass a bill or resolution requiring the Prez to get Congressional approval before attacking Iran, I think--Joe is trying to lay the groundwork to prevent such a resolution from being drafted, IMO.

[lligrd]

2. Using All Force Necessary To Protect Iraq Forever

will be or policy. That is how I read it.

A law I would like to see passed: All bills, resolutions, amendments etc will be written in the simplest terms possible using the fewest words possible.

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. It gives Bush a blank check to use whatever military means he chooses, specifically against IRAN:

3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001747.html

This must not stand.

[cali]

4. It's a terrible, horrible resolution and it must be defeated but

it does NOT give bush a blank check. It has no force of law, and he already has a blank check; it's called the Constitution. He can bomb the shit out Iran for 60 days.