John Isaacs: Congress and Iran: The New Iraq?

Executive Director of the Center, John Isaacs, published a new article last week on the simmering situation in Congress concerning Iran. He sees last month as a turning point in the administration's PR offensive laying the groundwork for a preventive U.S. attack against Iran.

The drumbeat of a possible march to war with Iran reached a new intensity in recent weeks. Although the campaign is led by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, cheerleaders in Congress and the conservative community—with no small assistance from Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his inflammatory rhetoric—are aiding and abetting.

While the Iraq War continues into its fifth year as a debilitating quagmire, with Democrats lacking the votes to bring U.S. soldiers home, the war debate has shifted to Iran. Congressional hardliners offer amendments to bills to show how tough they are toward Ahmadinejad, and few Democrats are willing to vote "no."

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates are eagerly trying to outhawk each other with statements regarding Iran. The Democratic candidates have gotten into the act too, although they are competing to show who is most open to a diplomatic solution, rather than war.

If U.S. warplanes fly toward Iran next year, October 2007 may be remembered as the month that the Bush administration began its final push to prepare the American public for a new conflagration in the Middle East. To many, it looked like the 2002 run-up to the attack against Iraq. As Yogi Berra said, it's "déjà vu all over again."

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