Yesterday, as the Senate cleared the controversial detainee bill and the House passed legislation authorizing the president’s warrantless wiretapping program (with some restrictions), a little-noticed bill moved the nation a step closer toward a reckoning with Iran. Passed by the House, and now making its way quickly through the Senate, the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which would reauthorize existing sanctions against Iran, stops short of calling for outright regime-change but states that it should be U.S. policy to back “peaceful pro-democracy forces in Iran” and “to support efforts by the people of Iran to exercise self-determination over the form of government of their country.”
The New York Sun reports:
The measure specifically does not authorize military action, but in the same way the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 foreshadowed events in the Gulf, the latest bill may come to be seen as an upping of the ante with the Islamic regime — or a step or two short of war.
As Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Florida Republican who sponsored the bill, told the AP, “Enough with the carrots. It’s time for the stick.”
