Scuttle all diplomatic efforts by threats aka shouldn't Turkey launch attacks into Iraq?

The New York Times
June 10, 2007
Lieberman Backs Limited U.S. Attacks on Iran
By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON, June 10 — Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent who strongly supports the war in Iraq, said today that unless Iran stops training Iraqis to carry out anti-coalition attacks, the United States should launch cross-border attacks into Iran.

“I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Mr. Lieberman said in an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

This could be achieved mostly with air attacks, Mr. Lieberman said, adding, “I’m not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran.”

The comment from Mr. Lieberman of Connecticut, who is sometimes a swing vote in the closely divided Senate, went far beyond the official position in the Bush administration, which has warned Iran about supporting Iraqi insurgents but also recently held high-level talks with Iranian officials. There was no immediate White House reaction.

The administration has criticized Tehran for failing to stop the flow of highly destructive explosives into Iraq, and training Iraqis in their use, but American officials concede that they are unable to prove that senior Iranian officials are behind the smuggling.

Mr. Lieberman said he supported the high-level talks with Iran, but added that there was “incontrovertible” evidence that Iranians were training Iraqis to use the explosives, which are blamed for killing as many as 200 Americans.

"They can’t believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans," he said. "We cannot let them get away with it.”

The senator also said he doubted that the White House decision not to renominate Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff presaged any strategy shift for Iraq.

White House spokesmen have pointed to a caution from Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, that a Pace reconfirmation hearing would have provided a platform for a bruising re-examination of mistakes made in Iraq.

The president “would have loved to renominate Pete Pace,” the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said on CBS. “That was his intent.” But he said there was a desire to avoid “getting mired in a backward-looking debate.”

Mr. Snow denied, in an appearance on Fox, that the White House was effectively giving the Democratic Congress a preemptive veto over its nominations.

But some Democrats suggested that, congressional opposition aside, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wanted his own man in the job — not the last high-ranking holdover from the Pentagon regime of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

“To suggest that tough sledding on Capitol Hill is a reason to pull the plug on Peter Pace, I don’t think that’s a good argument,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. He said he probably would have voted to confirm General Pace.

In the past, the Bush administration has not shied away from such battles — and Mr. Snow said today that the White House would pay no mind Monday if a Senate no-confidence vote in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales prevailed. Mr. Snow called it “a purely symbolic vote.”

Mr. Durbin expressed surprise at that reaction. “This is a White House that is prepared to fight for Attorney General Gonzales,” who has faced intense bipartisan criticism for his handling of the firings of several United States attorneys, “but not fight for Marine Corps General Peter Pace?”