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Entry: A Phony Crisis -- and a Real One Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/a_phony_crisis_and_a_real_one#32717 Post contents: Refreshingly, the folks on this forum, far as I can tell, have too much insight and intellectual integrity to engage in false argument; thus, comments such as those below are awry: -"The bill calls for a blockade of Iran." - "First, the Bush Administration believes that the AUMF provides all the justification necessary to pursue action against any and all people, organizations, states or actors the president sees fit." - "Finally, a blockade is an act of war. I beg those who seek to debate and dissect HCR 362 to at least read it. No where in the resolution is the word BLOCKADE even mentioned. No where. There's a request for inspection requirements of goods, cargo and bodies, etc., entering or exiting Iran, but that request extends to trains and planes in the same vein as proximate ships. Thus, would this putative and imaginary blockade equally extend to the omnipresent railways and skies of the world, which also help "export" to Iran? The proposition is absurd. The expressed "inspection requirement" clause is simply meant to seek in a multilateral(worldwide)sense toward Iran what is already being done in many countries toward other dubious regimes: i.e., double-check AT MANIFOLD POINTS OF EXPORT(and it could be Canada, for god's sake) any products headed toward, in this case, Iran. So enough of the "blockade" strawman, please. One more minor detail: there's an explicit statement in the resolution that denies any right or power to employ force. Period. Point two: The AUMF. Clearly, Bush would use any device within arm's length of legality to exercise his Sharansky-esque worldview. Unfortunately, the AUMF invites that and more, including having the paradoxical virtue (for Bush)of constitutional ambiguity and, worse, of being legally buttressed whenever those House and Senate dopes...including Obama...sign off on additional war funding. The AUMF thereby obtains a tacit approval in perpetuity. There's some good news, however. The AUMF also mandates a pretty explicit nexus to 911 and to terrorists (and oragnizations) thereof. It has a shelf life. And while few would doubt that the Iranian mullahcracy has its share of terrorists, it strains credulity to link Shia with Sunni (say Hezbollah v. al Qaeda) in this instance (recalling that most of the 911 crowd were Sunni/Wahhabists from S.A.) Moreover, the SCOTUS did reject-or constrain-the blanket use of AUMF in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (as it will untimately do if FISA ever arrives at the Supreme Court.) Those two elements in mind, even Bush's dogs of war would find difficulty in using the AUMF to tackle Iran. Sent at: 2008 12 01