Mitch McConnell: Congress should authorize bomb, bomb, bombing Iran

[ProSense]

Mitch McConnell: Congress should authorize bomb, bomb, bombing Iran

by Meteor Blades

In all the hyperventilating over the possibility of Iran joining the other nine members of the nuclear club, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has now injected a new potential escalation in a speech to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The Kentucky Republican says he would introduce an authorization for the use of force against Iran if intelligence indicates that nation has decided to build a nuclear bomb or starts enriching uranium to weapons-grade level:

McConnell, who along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will sit down with Netanyahu on Tuesday, told the pro-Israel lobby that a nuclear Iran would not only threaten Israel but other nations in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

“Israel’s security is not negotiable,” McConnell said. “We can’t shrink from affirming that to the rest of the world, and we certainly can’t shrink from telling a sitting president how we think it’s best achieved.”

In case you're unfamiliar with AUMFs, it was just short of a decade ago when the House and Senate voted on one authorizing the president to use military force "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."

The two key reasons put forth for the authorization was that Iraq was developing or had in its possession weapons of mass destruction and had a working relationship with al Qaeda. Both assertions were not supported by evidence at the time, but, as we later had confirmed by the Downing Street Memo and Bush-Blair Memo, the Cheney-Bush administration distorted intelligence reports and presented "facts" at the United Nations that it knew to be untrue in order to justify an invasion it was already set on prosecuting.

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McConnell's speech may simply be election-year fodder, not all that different than Mitt Romney's pathetic op-ed in today's Washington Post, merely some chest-thumping in which to call out the president for supposedly not doing enough to stop Iran from going down a path nobody has certain evidence that it is going down. Or he may mean it. If the latter, it is easy to imagine that Congress would go along with it, despite how previous AUMFs have been used. More war and more constraints on freedom at home would undoubtedly be potential outcomes.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/06/1071702/-Mitch-McConnell-Congress-should-authorize-bomb-bomb-bombing-Iran-

These asshole warmongering Republicans are running around dismissing diplomacy and working with the international community, and doing it by trying to frame the administration's actions as unwilling to act unilaterally.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. Hypocrites

They'd be screaming bloody murder if a Democratic Congress was trying to "tie" the hands", "second-guessing", "questioning" a Republican "Commander-in-Chief". They'd jump up and down and proclaim that the venal Democrats are interfering with that Republican President's ability to conduct foreign policy.

Oh, wait, they actually did back in 2007-2009 when they tried to force an Iraq withdrawal timeline on Bush.

Hypocrites!!!

The sad thing about such a "debate" in Congress over Iran and authorizing the use of military force is that it would be about as rational and insightful and intelligent as the one over Iraq back in 2002-2003.

[ProSense]

2. Exactly. n/t