If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war.

For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran.

Pelosi's capitulation came in the Appropriations Committee.

What went down, and why?

"Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy," wrote The Associated Press' David Espo and Matthew Lead.

"Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in an interview there is a widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which ... has expressed unremitting hostility to the Jewish state.

"'It would take away perhaps the most important tool the U.S. has when it comes to Iran,' she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"'I don't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize in a civilized way,' said Gary Ackerman of New York."

According to John Nichols of The Nation, Pelosi's decision to strip the provision barring Bush from attacking Iran without Congress' approval "sends the worst possible signal to the White House."

"The speaker has erred dangerously and dramatically," writes Nichols. Her "disastrous misstep could haunt her and the Congress for years to come."

Nichols does not exaggerate.

If Bush now launches war on Iran, he can credibly say Congress and the Democrats gave him a green light. For Pelosi, by removing a provision saying Bush does not have the authority, de facto concedes he does have the authority.

Bush and Cheney need now not worry about Congress.

They have been flashed the go sign for war on Iran.

Pelosi & Co. thus aborted a bipartisan effort to ensure that if we do go to war again, we do it the constitutional way, and we do it together.

Nothing in the provision would have prevented Bush, as commander in chief, from responding to an Iranian attack or engaging in hot pursuit of an enemy found in Iraq. Nor would the provision have prevented Bush from threatening Iran. It would simply have required him to come to Congress -- before launching all-out war.

Now Pelosi has, in effect, ceded Bush carte blanche to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. It's all up to him and Cheney.

For this the nation elected a Democratic Congress?

Why did Pelosi capitulate? Answer: She was "under pressure from some conservative members of her caucus, and from lobbyists associated with neoconservative groups that want war with Iran and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)," writes Nichols.

The Washington Times agrees as to who bully-ragged Nancy into scuttling any requirement that Bush come to the Hill before unleashing the B-2s on Arak, Natanz and Bushehr:

"Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a smattering of boos when she bad-mouthed the war effort during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Democratic leadership, responding to concerns from pro-Israel lawmakers, was forced to strip from a military appropriations measure a provision meant to weaken President Bush's ability to respond to threats from Iran."

This episode, wherein liberal Democrats scuttled a bipartisan effort to require Bush to abide by the Constitution before taking us into a third war in the Middle East, speaks volumes about who has the whip hand on Capitol Hill, when it comes to the Middle East.

Pelosi gets booed by the Israeli lobby, then runs back to the Hill and gives Bush a blank check for war on Iran, because that is what the lobby demands. A real candidate for Profiles in Courage.

As for the presidential candidates, it is hard to find a single one willing to stand up and say: If Bush plans to take us into another war in the Mideast, he must first come to Congress for authorization. And if he goes to war without authorization, that will be impeachable.

All retreat into the "all-options-are-on-the-table" mantra, which is another way of saying, "It's Bush's call."

The corruption of both parties is astonishing. Republicans used to be the party of the Constitution: "No more undeclared wars! No more presidential wars!"

Democrats used to be the party of the people. The people don't want this war. They don't want another. The Jewish community voted 88 percent for Democrats in November, and 77 percent oppose Iraq.

So says Gallup. Yet, just because the Israeli lobby jerked her chain, the leader of the Peoples' House has decided she and her party will leave the next war up to Bush.

Sam Rayburn must be turning over in his grave.

The Democrats, formerly known as the Dixiecrats, were never a party of the workingclass. They are and always have been a twin of the Republican Party, paid for by the same corporations to carry out the same capitalist agenda. The only reason the Democrats exist is to keep the Reds and Greens out of office. That is why they mouth peace phrases at election time, to make sure you do not vote for the only 2 peace parties on the ballot, the socialist Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party. Before 1970, they were known as the Dixiecrats, with all the Southern Democrats in the lead, promoting segregation. With Nixon's campaign in 1968, the segregationists joined the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has not changed one iota. We say in our peace marches: Remember Hiroshima, Remember Vietnam, Democratic Party, We Know Which Side You're On! Democrat Truman dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to tell the Soviet Union, our ally which was poised to attack Japan after the war in Europe, the main theater of WW2 had ended in May, that the 20th Century was to be the American Century. It was Truman who framed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell on false charges of conspiracy to commit atomic espionage to make, as Julius said, Jew, Communist and traitor synonymous so as to have support for the anti-communist war in Korea. The Rosenbergs were murdered by the US government on June 19, 1953. Sobell served 19.5 years for a crime he did not commit. The war against Vietnam was perpetrated by Democrats Kennedy and Johnson, as well as Republicans. If you vote for Democrats or Republicans, you ALWAYS VOTE FOR WAR. IF YOU WANT PEACE, you have to vote for the peace parties on the California ballot, Peace & Freedom and the Green Party. See http://www.peaceandfreedom.org

What else would you expect from these frauds? Woodrow Wilson got himself elected by promising not to get the US involved in World War I, then almost immediately rammed a declaration of war against Germany through Congress once he was re-elected. LBJ depicted himself as the anti-war candidate when he ran against the openly pro-war Goldwater and then, once he won, immediately began shipping massive numbers of US troops to Vietnam. Carter defeated Ford partially because he depicted himself as an anti-militarist, promising to lower the "Defense" budget. Instead, he raised it, greatly increased the chances of nuclear war by placing US missles all over Europe, and began funding Bin Laden and his fellow murderers and mysogenists in Afghanistan. Clinton depicted himself as an opponent of "trickle down economics" and then presided over a society in which the gap between the rich and the poor was even larger when he left the White House than it had been when he entered it, largely because of his deregulation schemes (pioneered by the saintly Carter), NAFTA, ending "welfare as we know it" and making the Democratic Party even more distant from the labor movement than it had been in the first place.

One more word about Saint Carter. When Ted Kennedy suggested national health insurance back in the 1970's, Carter and Vice President Mondale claimed that the United States could not possibly afford such a system -which every other industrialized nation on earth except apartheid South Africa seemed able to afford. Maybe Carter and his pal feared that it might cost some money that could otherwise be sent to the freedom fighters/drug dealers in Afghanistan.

What else would you expect from these frauds? Woodrow Wilson got himself elected by promising not to get the US involved in World War I, then almost immediately rammed a declaration of war against Germany through Congress once he was re-elected. LBJ depicted himself as the anti-war candidate when he ran against the openly pro-war Goldwater and then, once he won, immediately began shipping massive numbers of US troops to Vietnam. Carter defeated Ford partially because he depicted himself as an anti-militarist, promising to lower the "Defense" budget. Instead, he raised it, greatly increased the chances of nuclear war by placing US missles all over Europe, and began funding Bin Laden and his fellow murderers and mysogenists in Afghanistan. Clinton depicted himself as an opponent of "trickle down economics" and then presided over a society in which the gap between the rich and the poor was even larger when he left the White House than it had been when he entered it, largely because of his deregulation schemes (pioneered by the saintly Carter), NAFTA, ending "welfare as we know it" and making the Democratic Party even more distant from the labor movement than it had been in the first place.

One more word about Saint Carter. When Ted Kennedy suggested national health insurance back in the 1970's, Carter and Vice President Mondale claimed that the United States could not possibly afford such a system -which every other industrialized nation on earth except apartheid South Africa seemed able to afford. Maybe Carter and his pal feared that it might cost some money that could otherwise be sent to the freedom fighters/drug dealers in Afghanistan.