The AEI speaks out against Congress’ sanction legislation against Iran and starts a fight with AIPAC.

Yes, that is pretty weird, but exactly what Danielle Pletka, the AEI’s vice president of foreign and defense policy studies, is doing in today’s WaPo op-ed: Congress’s Ill-Timed Iran Bills.

Pletka fears that U.S. sanctions on European companies which deal with Iran would stop European cooperation on any further U.N. sanctions against Iran:

Most of the bills pending in the House and Senate would, if passed, tighten the provisions of the Iran Sanctions Act (formerly known as the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act) and strip the president of authority to waive U.S. sanctions on a variety of firms, many in Europe.

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On principle, many European foreign and finance ministries continue to resent American hectoring on trade with Iran. A senior German Foreign Ministry official recently characterized Treasury Department lobbying against business with Iran as "outrageous." Such protestations notwithstanding, word has quietly spread from Paris, London and Berlin that banks and companies now do business with Iran at their own risk.

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For many years, a key element of Iranian strategy has been to divide Europe from the United States, leaving America with only unilateral options. It would be a cruel irony if, just as European governments finally begin doing the right thing, Congress deepens the Atlantic rift.

Pletka the multi-lateralist … quite amazing. But as we will see, there is reason for this.

The Jewish JTA reports on U.S. lawmakers coming back from their yearly indoctrination lessons in Israel (free copy here):

Fresh off summer-recess visits to Israel, several key lawmakers are intensifying the push to pass legislation aimed at isolating Iran.

U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who led a trip to Israel last week involving 18 members of Congress, told JTA that Israeli leaders depicted the Iran issue as most urgent.

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"All of us came back with a renewed sense of the importance of dealing with Iran, of the dangers that a nuclear armed Iran would pose to the region and the international community," Hoyer said. "There is a sense that Ahmadinejad is one of the few world leaders who expresses the possibility of the elimination of another sovereign nation — Israel — and hopes to eliminate from the Middle East the United States of America."

Hoyer didn’t check with a map or globe, but he got it anyway. Ahmadinejad wants to eliminate the United States of America!!!

Bush might object to broader legislation sponsored by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that would extend sanctions to any third party having dealings with Iran’s nuclear sector — and restrict the president’s ability to waive such sanctions.

Hoyer says he hopes to accelerate the passage of the Lantos legislation. He says the measure has 323 sponsors — a number substantially greater than the 291 votes that would be needed to override a veto by Bush.
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Hoyer said he was unsettled by what he described as the relative lack of urgency among Europeans and others about Iran. A nuclear Iran would exert greater controls over oil markets, he said.

"Russia and Europe and China have economies that are reliant on foreign products. They should have concern over such a destabilizing reality," he said.

One wonders when Hoyer had his last briefing on who is financing the U.S. deficits. What Congress is doing here may start a serious trade war. Does he want to stop Japan from buying oil from Iran and selling cars to Persians by shutting down Toyota factories in the U.S.? How would the Japanese react? This is certainly worrying for Pletka and the American Enterprise Institute.

The above still may be simple mirror fighting. A good insight on how this could be just a charade is provided by Farideh Farhi, a scholar at the University of Hawai:

[O]ver the past five years of closely monitoring the fate of Iran’s nuclear dossier, I have become skeptical of newspaper leaks, plants or commentary that hint at the possibility of eventual military action (either by the United States or Israel) against Iran right around the time or in the midst of negotiations among permanent Security Council members and Germany (P5+1) about the extension of sanctions against Iran.
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[A]s far as I can tell even the smallest hint of US military action (and the potential terrorist designation of the national army of another country is certainly a hint) has become a very useful tool not only in the process of persuading countries freaked out about yet another Middle East war that sanctions are the way to go but also in framing the Iran policy discussions domestically in the US.

That seems to be the strategy the U.S. has been following so far. Threaten military action to make international sanctions look like "the better choice" while suppressing any idea of other choices like serious negotiations.

But now Congress members, fired up by Israeli and AIPAC influence, are becoming overzealous. Threatening the national commercial interest of allies is counterproductive for U.S. commercial interests. Congress needs to be whistled back. Hence Pletka from his U.S. industry financed chair is pulling the leash.

But with a Democratic majority AIPAC influence is probably stronger than the AEI’s and in this case Congress may be out of control of the U.S. enterprise elite.

On Iraq the interests of the AEI and AIPAC converged. On Iran they are now diverging. That’s stuff for an interesting fighting scene.

Popcorn anyone?