For those of us who care passionately about stopping war with Iran, Hillary Clinton's co-sponsorship of the Webb Amendment prohibiting the use of funds for military operations in Iran is a very big deal. The fact that she voted for the Lieberman-Kyl amendment last week on Iran, ironically, is part of why I think it is significant.
Here's my logic: when the most overtly pro-war language, giving Bush every single opening he wanted to start a war was stripped last week from Lieberman-Kyl, it was still a bad piece of legislation, but it took us a few steps away from the ledge, and was an important victory. Now the party's clear frontrunner who had intentionally positioned herself as more hawkish on Iran is saying no money for war with Iran. With Hillary positioning herself in that fashion, we have a pretty good chance of unifying the Democratic caucus, and with some moderate Republicans on our side in the first Iran vote on Lieberman-Kyl, we have a significant chance to get Congress on record in opposition to starting a war with Iran.
I don't want to get ahead of myself here, or get overly-optimistic, but with the combination of the language strip in Lieberman-Kyl, the new Sy Hersh piece scaring the shit out of people, and Hillary's positioning on this, it's been a good week for those of opposing an insane war with Iran. My single biggest fear right now is that Bush manages to ignite World War III before he leaves office by invading Iran. We won't be out of the woods until the lunatic leaves office, but our odds of this not happening just got a little bit better. All of us aware that war with Iran is a danger need to be pushing very hard on the Democrats to take a stand.
I'm told that Warner just offered a companion "Sense of the Congress/Senate" amendment. We don't know what's in it, but sense of the Congress/Senate resolutions usually do nothing. Most likely, this is a fig leaf for Republicans to vote for so they can pretend they don't consistently undermine American soldiers.
Apparently Warner is still in the 'reconsidering posture', which is in fact a Republican yoga move, and not to be confused with a 'wide stance'.
Also, habeas failed to reach cloture with a 56-41 vote, but that's not necessarily bad news. I'll have more soon.
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