Declaration of War?

So, yeah, is Joe Lieberman now trying to ram a declaration of war on Iran through Congress? I had missed this, but holy crap:

It's a "Sense of the Senate" resolution, which means it has no legal force, but as the Congressional Research Service will tell you, "foreign governments pay close attention to [such resolutions] as evidence of shifts in U.S. foreign policy priorities." If you want you can read it yourself (.doc), but here are the most important paragraphs:

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

If something like this passes both the House and Senate, I think Bush could legitimately argue that between it, the War Powers Act and the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations to Use Military Force, he has all the authority he needs to attack Iran.

Of course this will get supported, the Dems are too busy pretending they're against Iraq to pretend to be against Iran, but I was expecting something a bit, er, slower and more circumspect. That "use of all instruments" stuff is pretty much "by any means necessary" using synonyms.

It's "kill 'em all, God will know his own" in Congress-speak.