Monthly Archives: March 2007

Iran, Political wind

House vote prompted Iran to take Brits hostage

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Measure undermines Presidential authority and America’s foreign policy

Friday, the House of Representatives passed 218-212 a resolution that would mandate the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq no later than August of 2008. That same day, 15 British sailors were taken hostage by Iran. While the British government obviously hopes the Iranian government will release them, should it decide to use military force against Iran, it could normally count on the US military’s support.

These are not normal times.

President Bush has threatened to veto the bill, if it reaches his desk after Senate action with the withdrawal date mandates intact. Yet the measure passed by the House Friday included that the President must obtain Congressional approval prior to using military force against Iran.

The Wall Street Journal summed it up this morning this way:

As with the 1979 hostage crisis, how Britain and the rest of the civilized world respond in the early days of the crisis will determine how long it lasts. Britain has already demanded the safe and immediate return of its personnel; they will have to make clear that its foreign policy will not be held hostage to the mullahs.

That does not require a resort to military options while diplomacy still has a chance to gain the sailors’s release. Saturday’s unanimous vote by the U.N. Security Council was also welcome, even if the new sanctions continue to be far too weak. Serious sanctions would target the country’s supply of refined gasoline, much of which is imported.

It is worth recalling, however, that Iran was at its most diplomatically pliant after the United States sank much of Tehran’s navy after Iran tried to disrupt oil traffic in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s. Regimes that resort to force the way Iran does tend to be respecters of it. It is also far from certain that Western military strikes against Revolutionary Guards would move the Iranian people to rally to their side: Iranians know only too well what their self-anointed leaders are capable of.

Most important, the world should keep in mind that Iran has undertaken this latest military aggression while it is still a conventional military power. That means that Britain and the U.S. can still respond today with the confidence that they maintain military superiority. That confidence will vanish the minute Iran achieves its goal of becoming a nuclear power. Who knows what the revolutionaries in Tehran will then be capable of.

It is not mere conjecture to state Friday’s House vote did far more than signal the al Qaeda and insurgents in Iraq to just hold on, August of next year and the November 2008 election are coming. Last night, I heard one talking head cite what surely is within the Democrat Party’s latest talking points, that the taking of British hostages is, “One more example of why we need to get out of Iraq, so that our troops are not subjected to this.”

The House’s vote Friday, passed by the ‘yea’ votes of 216 Democrats and 2 Republicans, told the mullahs in Iran to do more for they are winning the War on Terror. While not specifically named as an enemy in the September 2001 authorization for the use of military force, Iran has waged war against the United States since 1979.

The House’s vote is a clear example of why the framers of our Constitution vested the Executive branch with the authority to conduct foreign policy. The framers knew wars were won or lost and while Congress can declare war, there is no provision in the Constitution for it to withdraw that authorization. They can de-fund war; they cannot undeclare it.

Friday’s House vote sent Iran 218 white flags signaling they at least are willing to surrender.

6 imams, CAIR, Islamofascists

Shariah in Minnesota?

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That is what Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s Katherine Kersten provides indications of in an op-ed, today, in the Wall Street Journal:

In Washington, the Democratic leadership is likely to seek passage of the End Racial Profiling Act, of which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called herself, in 2004, a “proud” cosponsor. Both MAS and CAIR are stumping for the bill, which would bar airport security personnel from disproportionately questioning Muslims or people of Middle Eastern descent. Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, the nation’s first Muslim Congressman, told me that the imams’ situation reflects a misunderstanding of Muslim prayer and will be sorted out in court, while the other matters stem from the normal process of immigrant adjustment.

The events here suggest a larger strategy: By piggy-backing on our civil rights laws, Islamist activists aim to equate airport security with racial bigotry and to move slowly toward a two-tier legal system. Intimidation is a crucial tool. The “flying imams” lawsuit ups the ante by indicating that passengers who alerted airport authorities will be included as defendants. Activists are also perfecting their skills at manipulating the media. After a “pray-in” at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., one credulous MSNBC anchor likened the flying imams to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

The comparison is misplaced: Omar Shahin, leader of the detained imams, has helped raise money for at least two charities later shut down for supporting terrorism. From 2000 to 2003, he headed the Islamic Center of Tucson, which terrorism expert Rita Katz described in the Washington Post as holding “basically the first cell of al Qaeda in the United States.” CAIR has long been controversial for alleged terrorist ties, while the Chicago Tribune has described MAS as the American arm of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, which “preaches that religion and politics cannot be separated and that governments eventually should be Islamic.”

Yet the effort there involves far more then a lawsuit by 6 imams, as you will see if you READ THE REST.