Iran resolution needs full airing

Newsday.com

Ackerman bill is not noncontroversial

Sometime soon, Rep. Gary Ackerman hopes, the House will vote on his get-tough-on-Iran resolution under rules that allow it to be considered as a noncontroversial item. But it should get a lot more scrutiny than that.

His resolution doesn't need presidential approval, but it demands presidential action about Iran's "pursuit of nuclear weapons," despite the lack of certainty that Iran is doing that. Last year, the nation's 16 intelligence agencies reported with high certainty that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and with moderate certainty that it had not started it up again. Ever since, the Bush administration has tried to downplay that National Intelligence Estimate, but the intelligence community has not formally revised it.

Now, Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) wants the president to "initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran," to include "prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program."

Though the resolution doesn't use the word "blockade," its critics say that those restrictions would amount to one. They fear that this resolution could set off an unpredictable cascade of action-reaction that would help those in the Bush administration who still favor a military strike against Iran.

Whether the fears are correct or not, this doesn't seem to qualify as a "noncontroversial" resolution, a category usually reserved for statements lauding music education or deploring cancer. Let's have a full debate on this one.