Looking toward Iran

Re “War with Iran? Congress says OK,” Current, Oct. 29

Although the Iran Freedom Support Act does not contain explicit authority for going to war with Iran, it contains language that could serve as a kind of on-the-shelf Gulf of Tonkin Resolution for later convenience. Apparently, Congress must believe that we have the ability to wage a new war of choice even while Iraq is straining our military and pocketbook to the limit.

I would urge my representative in the House to write language into the next appropriations bill that would require 50% of each state’s representatives in Congress to serve in ground combat units for the first year of any war of choice against Iran. Unfortunately, my congressman is under Justice Department investigation for earmarks he wrote. No help from him.

JOHN M. FRETER

Yucca Valley

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Iran is indeed like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq -- a country ruled by a tyrannical, terrorism-supporting regime that is virulently hostile to the United States and its Western allies and that threatens the elimination of Israel. We can debate how we should deal with the threat from Iran, but to pretend, as Jon Sawyer does, that there is no threat is to be deaf to the venom being spouted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and blind to the bloody record of the Iranian regime.

ANDREW APOSTOLOU

Washington