The Senate passed a resolution early on Saturday by a vote of 90-1 “joining” President Obama in rejecting any policy that would seek to contain Iran “as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.” However the non-binding measure — which all but two Democrats voted for — breaks significantly with the president’s policy on containment’s threshold.

In passing the resolution, the Senate is now on record as “reject[ing] any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.” The wording of “nuclear-weapons capable” is important because many non-proliferation and nuclear experts have said that Iran is currently capable of building a bomb.

President Obama, however, has said his policy is to not contain an Iran with a nuclear weapon:

And what I have said is, is that we will not countenance Iran getting a nuclear weapon. My policy is not containment; my policy is to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon — because if they get a nuclear weapon that could trigger an arms race in the region, it would undermine our non-proliferation goals, it could potentially fall into the hands of terrorists.

What’s more, the Senate resolution did not define “capable” and various lawmakers in favor of this language have offered a wide array of meanings.

Therefore, the Senate’s threshold for military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons (experts and U.S. and Israeli officials have argued that a military strike would only delay, not prevent, an Iranian bomb) is more immediate than Obama’s and dangerously vague.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said recently that the United States would know if Iran decides to push for a nuclear weapon and in that case, there would be time for an appropriate response. The Obama administration has indicated that it takes no option off the table in its effort to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, including military force.

As Ali Gharib noted over at the Daily Beast, passing the measure puts the Senate in league with Mitt Romney and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who lost his a recent public relations battle on Iran to the Obama administration — over the president.
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Our guess blogger is Philip Ballentine, national security team intern at the Center for American Progress

At a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing last week, Senator Sen. James Risch (R-ID) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) treated six four-star Generals and Admirals testifying in favor of ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) with hostility before questioning their motives and honesty.

At the hearing, the Generals and Admirals spoke unanimously asking for Senate ratification of UNCLOS. Adm. James Winnefeld, the Vice Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that joining “will fortify our credibility as the world’s leading naval power and allow us to bring to bear the full force of our influence on maritime disputes.” The other panelists, including the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and the heads of US Northern, Pacific, and Transport Commands, all agreed. The military, business leaders, environmentalists, and labor groups all support ratification.

But some Republicans on the committee opening attacked these top military officials for supporting the treaty. Risch reacted angrily, accusing Commandant Robert J. Papp, Jr. of disrespecting the Committee when he said that America’s non-ratification has prevented the resolution of American maritime disputes with Canada, saying, “Admiral Papp, you know, we sit here every day and it isn’t very often our intelligence is insulted.”

When Adm Samuel Locklear III, the head of U.S. Pacific Command, testified that joining UNCLOS would help America press China on its claims in the South China Sea, Risch fumed that treaty is nothing but, “Flowery speeches, just like the ones we’ve had here today.” He continued to lecture Locklear and the rest of the panel on the situation in the South China Sea, saying, “The gate is open and the rodeo is started!”

Despite the fact that all six panelists specifically said they were offering their independent judgments on UNCLOS, Inhofe dismissed their testimony, saying, “You’re naturally going to reflect anything that comes [from the Commander in Chief]—you have to.” Watch clips from the hearing:

“In continuing their efforts to delay ratification, staunch conservatives in the Senate show their extreme ideological and out-of-touch position by opposing a measure that even their strongest champions—Big Oil, the Chamber of Commerce, and the U.S. military—assure them would secure U.S. economic and national security interests,” said Michael Conathan, Director of Ocean Policy at the Center for American Progress.

In recent years, conservative Republicans have repeatedly questioned military leaders’ motives and honesty when they disagree, notably over the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and Pentagon budget cuts. If America’s top brass cannot get through to Senate Republicans on these security issues, who can?

GOP Congressional candidate Jorge Robles is very serious about unseating Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) as the representative for California’s 38th district — and he’s using some gun imagery to do it. In a 5-minute web video released yesterday, Robles explains how he would, from Washington, end the state regulations that supposedly make California inhospitable to businesses. Interspersed throughout the video for today’s primary was an animation that shows a machine gun firing toward a wall until the words “Jorge Robles For Congress –- TAKE LINDA SANCHEZ OUT OF OFFICE” are visible.

Watch the ad, which was flagged by the New York Observer’s Hunter Walker, here:

Walker spoke with Robles campaign manager Robert Davis, who cited Robles’s job as a state parole agent and seemingly dismissed any violent overtones of the machine gun message:

Mr. Robles is in law enforcement, if you’re not aware of that, so I think it’s his way of just kind of sending our message. We’re going after Linda Sanchez, not in the way that portrays it to be if you’re thinking like that. We’re very strongly against her policies, and her programs and people really need to understand what she’s about.

Robles states repeatedly in the video that Sanchez’s “record speaks for itself” (without discussing said record), and the Robles campaign superimposes the words “HOT MESS!!” on an appearance by Sanchez on MSNBC.

Robles is running against Sanchez in a new open primary system in California, where all candidates run and the top two vote-getters end up on the ballot in November.

As the Observer points out, violent imagery, particularly that involving guns, came to the fore last year with the shooting of Rep. Gabriella Giffords (D-AZ), who was targeted by gun sights on an electoral map put out by Sarah Palin’s political organization. The crosshairs on the political map drew widespread criticism, though that didn’t stop some politicians like Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) from making light of gun violence in a political context.

The Pentagon wants to move toward a greener military, one that relies more on renewable energy and less on fossil fuels. Why? It would save lives. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey made that case last October and a recent Army study found that “[a] fighting force that isn’t restricted by the reach of a tanker truck or weighted down by heavy batteries is more nimble and, as a result, more lethal.”

So in theory, Congress should have no problem passing legislation to provide the funds to make this a reality. However, there are a few hurdles standing in the way: Republicans. The House GOP included a measure in the defense authorization bill this month prohibiting the Defense Department from buying alternative fuels if they cost more than “traditional fossil fuel.” And the Senate Armed Services Committee last week followed suit with an “even tougher” provision mirroring the House version but also exempts DOD from clean energy standards.

Why are the Republicans doing this? VoteVets.org chairman Jon Soltz pointed out yesterday that they get a lot of money from the oil and gas industry:

In short, Republicans would be forcing the military to go back to using the same fuels that hampered it from doing its job — and the same fuels that have resulted in the deaths of so many Americans.

Why? That’s the question that must be asked. And the answer is pretty simple. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Oil and Gas interests have donated 88 percent of their political contributions to Republicans this cycle — nearly $18 million. That’s the highest percentage they’ve given to Republicans since at least 1990.

And, boy, are Republicans delivering for them. Even if it means forcing the Pentagon to stop developing programs that could make our military more effective. Even if it means banning programs that would save the lives of our troops. There is nothing, it seems, that they value more than delivering for their dirty oil campaign donors.

Two Senate Democrats, Jim Webb (VA) and Joe Manchin (WV) joined the Armed Services Committee Republicans in voting for the measure. However, the amendment may have failed had Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who voted against a similar amendment, been present for the vote. The Hill reported last week that “[a] Collins spokesman said she had to miss the vote to speak with the commander of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine after the USS Miami fire. He said Collins would support biofuels if the issue comes up on the Senate floor.”

“While we all love the environment and want to be good stewards of the earth,” Soltz added, “the military isn’t on some kind of ecological mission when it comes to renewables. They’re trying to help ensure men and women come home to their loved ones.”