Despite the Bush administration’s repeated insistence that they are not planning to invade Iran, they have not pursued the serious diplomatic negotiations needed to resolve conflict between the two governments. In fact, the administration has recently taken actions that are likely to inflame tensions with Iran. The administration has deployed a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf and moved Patriot missile units into Iraq. The U.S. military arrested Iranian diplomats in Iraq, in addition to receiving permission to capture and kill Iranian “operatives.” In recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to rule out the possibility of cross-border military action in Iran.

The latest hostile posturing toward Iran involved the presentation of vague evidence that the Iranian government was overseeing the supply of deadly weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq. Unnamed Defense Department officials gave a briefing claiming links between “explosively formed projectiles” in Iraq and the regime in Iran, though they acknowledged that they lacked a “smoking gun.” Shortly after the briefing, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Staff and generally a staunch supporter of the Bush administration, stated, “I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows [about the weapons] or is complicit."? Despite the lack of a strong case, President Bush stuck by his claim, and tried to dismiss the importance of the distinction: “But, my point is, what's worse, them [the Iranian government] ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it happening?" There is a significant difference between these two scenarios, and we must not allow the Bush administration to take the U.S. to war on unsubstantiated intelligence yet again.

What can Congress do about this disturbing move away from diplomacy? A panel of Constitutional experts told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the president would indeed need authorization to expand the war into Iran, and that Congress can place limitations on military action. Professor Davis Barron of Harvard Law School noted, “no doubt Congress could restrict him from going and widening the war, not just in terms of the amount of troops used, but in the geographic area covered, and the only issue is whether Congress has in effect already done so by virtue of the limitations and bounds of the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq that’s already enacted.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently reiterated, "I do believe that Congress should assert itself, though, and make it very clear that there is no previous authority for the president, any president, to go into Iran."

Congress has the authority to stop Bush in his tracks. It’s up to us to put pressure on Congress to take a stand. The supplemental request to fund the war in Iraq is the best vehicle to enact binding legislation saying Bush has no authority to attack Iran.

Click here to write to your representative asking for concrete action to prevent war with Iran.