Elliott Abrams says now is the time for Congress to authorize the use of military force against Iran

Ultra-hawk Elliott Abrams wants Congress to give Iran a great big warning. The odds that Elliott Abrams would get some foreign policy slot in a Romney-Ryan administration are certainly better than 50-50. Since switching from Democratic hawk to Republican ultrahawk, this charter member of the neo-conservative wing of the GOP has served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. His intimate involvement in crafting bloodthirsty policy in Central America in the 1980s and in the Middle East in the 2000s (including criminal behavior in the Iran-Contra affair) ought to be enough to make him as toxic as any emeritus death-squad commander. Instead, he keeps getting a forum for his poisonous views in the media, the lecture circuit and the classroom.

A leading warmonger'for the purpose of spreading democracy and peace, of course'Abrams's latest argument is that tough talk on Iran coming from tough talkers like fellow neo-conservative Dennis Ross and former Israeli military intelligence Gen. Amos Yadlin just isn't tough enough.

Abrams isn't suggesting the United States bomb-bomb-bomb Iran tomorrow. He just wants Congress to pass an authorization to use military force resolution. You may recall two recent AUMFs and what's been done with them. There was (and is) the AUMF passed on Sept. 18, 2001, for the president to use force against the terrorists of Sept. 11 and those who aided or harbor them, and the AUMF passed Oct. 16, 2002, for the president to use force to "defend" the United States from Iraq.

An AUMF laid out against Iran, Abrams says, is the only way, short of an actual attack, to prove to both the Tehran government and the Israeli government that the United States will definitely stop Iran from gaining the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Negotiations and sanctions have not accomplished that, he says. Israeli officials, who have stepped up their talk of striking Iran's nuclear facilities'possibly before the November election, but certainly before mid-2013'will only be persuaded of U.S. seriousness by passage of an AUMF. And Iran, too, will only be persuaded by such a move.

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