Israel Matzav

Congress votes 412-12 to sanction Iran. Guess who's opposed

I've probably run the picture at the top of this post dozens of times in the last year. Until now, it was arguably an exaggeration. Now, it's looking less like one.

This past week, the House passed the Iran Petroleum Sanctions Act by an overwhelming 412-12 vote. The 12 votes against included people like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul - people who are clearly outside the American mainstream. The sanctions will now go to the Senate - probably not until after the first of the year because the Senate is so busy trying to bring about the collapse of the American economy by implementing Obamacare/Reidcare.

When the Senate takes up the Iran Petroleum Sanctions Act, we should be grateful that it no longer includes among its membership two Senators named Obama from Illinois and Clinton from New York. You see, it's quite likely that the two of them would vote against the bill.

Tehran finally came back with a counterproposal late last week, in which no uranium would leave Iranian soil. Even Hillary Clinton admits it's a nonstarter: "I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of positive response from the Iranians," the Secretary of State told reporters.

Given those remarks, we would have imagined that Mrs. Clinton would take it as good news that on Tuesday the House voted 412-12 in favor of a new round of unilateral sanctions on Iran. The Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act would forbid any company that does energy business with Iran from having access to U.S. markets.

Instead, last week Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg wrote to Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry urging that the Senate postpone taking up the House bill. "I am concerned that this legislation, in its current form, might weaken rather than strengthen international unity and support for our efforts," wrote Mr. Steinberg.

So let's see: Iran spurns every overture from the U.S. and continues to develop WMD while abusing its neighbors. In response, the Administration, which had set a December deadline for diplomacy, now says it opposes precisely the kind of sanctions it once promised to impose if Iran didn't come clean, never mind overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. For an explanation of why Iran's behavior remains unchanged, look no further.

Here's hoping the Senate makes one small change to the bill that just passed the House. Here's hoping that the Senate makes those sanctions mandatory. From what I recall of my Constitutional Law class in law school (where I argued obsessively with my Leftist professor), treason is still a high crime or misdemeanor, i.e. an impeachable offense. Failing to take action that would defend America (let alone Israel) from an Iranian nuclear threat without endangering American lives strikes me as about as treasonous as you can get.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:07 PM