Led by right-wing Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the House Foreign Affairs Committee today marked up and passed new legislation on U.S.-Iran policies. Amendments to the bill, H.R. 1905, included one that says, “No person employed with the United States Government may contact in an official or unofficial capacity any person that…is an agent, instrumentality, or official of, is affiliated with, or is serving as a representative of the Government of Iran.” The president may request a waiver, but only with 15 days notice and if the contact averts an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the vital national security interests of the United States.”

The restriction in the amendment basically criminalizes U.S. diplomacy. At Democracy Arsenal, Heather Hurlburt lists a few very recent contacts with Iran that would be considered illegal under Ros-Lehtinen’s restrictions:

U.S. and Iranian diplomats have been sharing a conference room discussing the political future of Iran’s neighbor Afghanistan this week. The New York Times reported that the Administration had quietly reached out to Iran to attempt to bring it into a political discussion around Afghanistan’s future stability. No more of that.

And the number three official at the State Department, Bill Burns, had a meeting with an Iranian counterpart that, among other topics, proved important in releasing the first of the three American hikers from Iranian custody.

So those contacts — banned, as far as the House Foreign Affairs committee is concerned. What, after all, “vital national security interests” are served by ending the imprisonment of one of the U.S. hikers?

Furthermore, Georgetown professor and former top intelligence analyst Paul Pillar points out that the restrictions could prevent progress on the most contentious issue between Iran and the West, the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, potentially heightening the likelihood of war:

It would prevent any exploration of ways to resolve disagreement over that Iranian nuclear program that we are supposedly so intensely concerned about… And it would prevent any diplomacy to keep U.S.-Iranian incidents or crises—the kind that retired joint chiefs chairman Admiral Mullen expressed concern about—from spinning out of control, unless the crisis conveniently stretched out beyond the fifteen-day notification period.

And the 15-day notification seems outrageously long. The National Iranian American Council’s Jamal Abdi wonders, “What if Kennedy had to wait 15 days for Congress’ permission to meet with the Soviets to prevent the Cuban Missile Crisis – which lasted 13 days – from ending in nuclear war?” Indeed, Jim Lobe adds that the bill “eliminate(s) any doubt that its proponents want to involve the U.S. in yet another war in the Middle East.”

When news broke of an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., the field of Republican contenders were asked how they would respond if they were president. Perhaps the most unusual response came from Herman Cain, who said he would’ve thwarted the plot by stationing ballistic missile defense systems on Aegis naval warships in international waters off Iran’s coast. It’s a plan Cain repeatedly has hawked.

But on Fox News Channel yesterday, neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer pressed Cain on just how exactly missile defense systems would have stopped Iran from launching the alleged assassination plot. Cain admitted that it wouldn’t:

KRAUTHAMMER: How does placing Aegis cruisers affect Iran’s determination to use terrorism against the United States?

CAIN: It won’t deter their intent to use terrorism, but what it would do is it would let them know we are serious if they fire a ballistic missile toward us. … And what I would do also is double our fleet. We could double it and not only put them strategically in that part of the world but also protect our shores to defer them from feeling like they really want to fire a ballistic missile.

KRAUTHAMMER: But the Aegis is a defensive weapon. It intercepts a missile in flight. Iran doesn’t have any they could actually hit the United States now. And moreover, a defensive weapon in no way deters an aggressive action. It could deter a launch of a missile. But it is not going to deter a terrorist campaign.

CAIN: No, it’s not. It wasn’t intended to mean that it’s going to deter a terrorist campaign, not in the least. The point I was trying to make was I’m concerned about their march toward having a nuclear weapon, a march toward having more ballistic weapon capability.

KRAUTHAMMER: I don’t see how Aegis affects even that at all.

Watch the video:

On a separate interview on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox show last night, Cain said that while he did not want to see a military confrontation with Iran, it “would be perfectly alright” if Iran attacked the naval ships bearing the missile defense systems “because [he] believe(s) that we have a superior capability.” He also said placing naval ships in Iran’s neighborhood was not a provocation, and that the real provocation was Iran’s blustering (and unlikely) plan to place ships off the U.S.’s East Coast.

PBS’ Judy Woodruff interviewed GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain on Monday night and wanted to know how the former pizza CEO would handle China should he occupy the Oval Office. Boosting the “us vs. them” mentality the GOP usually promotes when talking about China, Cain said “they’re a military threat,” particularly because — seeming to keep up his image that he doesn’t know much about foreign policy — they’re trying to get nuclear weapons:

WOODRUFF: Do you view China as a potential military threat to the United States?

CAIN: I do view China as a potential military threat to the United States.

WOODRUFF: And what could you do as president to head that off?

CAIN: My China strategy is quite simply outgrow China. … [W]e already have superiority in terms of our military capability, and I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority and make investing in our military capability a priority, going back to my statement: peace through strength and clarity. So yes they’re a military threat. They’ve indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.

Watch the clip (starting at 10:47):

Far from “trying to develop a nuclear capability,” as Cain suggests, and at risk of insulting anyone’s intelligence, the Chinese conducted their first nuclear weapons test in 1964 and reportedly possess around 250 nuclear weapons, including thermonuclear warheads and around 150 tactical nukes. (HT: Huffington Post)

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is on a full-court press tour to promote her new book. Between trading jabs with her fellow Bush administration colleagues and crediting Bush for the Arab Spring, Rice defended the decision to invade Iraq in a sometimes contentious interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos pressed Rice on the high costs of the war and the lack of a meaningful link between Iraq and Al Qaeda:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Was the long and costly war in Iraq worth the sacrifice?

RICE: Every international relations class begins with the middle east is the most volatile region in the world. We also now know that it was the cradle of of Al Qaeda and extremism and therefore it was

STEPHANOPOULOS: Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq. You know that.

RICE: Bin Laden was a Saudi. Zawahiri was an Egyptian.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Not Iraqi though.

RICE: This came out of the Middle East. Now we didn’t go to Iraq to bring democracy to the Iraqis. And I try in the book to really explain that that wasn’t the purpose.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Some in the administration thought it was.

While Rice doesn’t explicitly defend the disproven claim of an Iraq-al Qaeda link, her logical jujitsu with Stephanopoulos does back her into a corner when she maintains a link between combating al Qaeda and invading Iraq because “This came out of the Middle East.” But her final assertion should require further explanation:

RICE: Rice: Well we were very clear about this. This was a security threat and I as much as anybody really regret the cost, particularly in lives, but I also know that nothing of any value is ever lost without sacrifice.

Watch it:

With no tangible proof of an Iraq-al Qaeda link and no evidence to substantiate the Bush administration’s claims of Iraq’s chemical or nuclear weapons programs, Rice should elaborate on what “security threat” was worth over 100,000 civilian deaths and 4,482 U.S. military fatalities.