A U.S. Senate vote that declared Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization has drawn Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama into one of the most divisive debates yet of the Democratic presidential campaign.

Their opposite interpretations of the legislation reflect their different views on foreign policy. But a recent exchange of press statements between the two campaigns also reflects a new willingness of the Obama campaign to go after its chief rival - and the readiness of the Clinton camp to respond.

Their recent sparring stems from a Sept. 26 Senate vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps a foreign terrorist organization. The amendment passed the U.S. Senate 76-22, with Clinton voting for it. Obama, campaigning in New Hampshire that day, missed the vote but said he would have opposed it.

The amendment cites evidence that Iranian forces are providing weapons, ammunition, training and funding to Shia extremists in Iraq who are fighting U.S. soldiers. It says the U.S. has a "vital national interest" in preventing Iran from turning Iraq's Shia militias into a Hezbollah-like force, and that U.S. policy should be to "combat, contain, and roll back (Iran's) violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq."

The amendment supports the use of U.S. power in Iraq - diplomatic and military - toward that policy. Democratic leaders have debated whether the amendment could be interpreted as authorizing the president to take military action against Iran.

Earlier this year, Obama co-sponsored a different bill that also would have designated the Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization. Obama said he supports the designation, which could lead to economic sanctions, but opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment because it could be used to justify keeping troops in Iraq to prevent the expansion of Iranian power.

"Voters want a leader who won't repeat the mistakes of Iraq - and the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment takes us down that same path," said Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin.

Obama adviser Greg Craig, former director of policy planning at the State Department and an assistant to then-President Clinton, told the Monitor yesterday that the amendment's language provides a new basis for maintaining troops in Iraq. "This has been a war in search of a rationale from the beginning," Craig said. "Now we have a brand-new rationale for conducting this war in Iraq that's introduced in the form of legislation that purports to be about Iran.

"Obama is totally consistent in saying, 'yes the Iranian participation and support for militias is going on, and it's bad,' but is that something we should be sending American troops to fight and die about, to prevent Iran from influencing the Shia population in Iraq?" Craig said.

Secondly, Craig said, the amendment could give President Bush authorization to send troops into Iran. "If it's in the critical interest to prevent Iran from equipping and arming the Shia community in Iraq, that's language that a president can say you've already spoken," Craig said.

He said Clinton's vote "is providing support for a brand new rationale for maintaining our troops inside Iraq. . . . She should have read this more carefully."

Clinton has defended her vote as a way to avert war through diplomatic and economic means. "We must use all the tools at our disposal to address the serious challenge posed by Iran, including diplomacy, economic pressure and sanctions," she said in a statement yesterday. Clinton has co-sponsored legislation that would force the president to go through Congress before taking military action against Iran.

And Clinton has her own experts to counter the Obama campaign's interpretation of the amendment. Gen. Wesley Clark wrote in a recent Union Leader op-ed, "There is nothing in the non-binding Kyl-Lieberman bill that would give President Bush any authority whatsoever to go to war." Rather, Clark said, in supporting the legislation, Clinton is "forcing the Bush administration to apply diplomatic pressure."

"Senator Clinton's approach represents the consistent strength combined with the kind of diplomacy that has been missing from this administration," Clark wrote.

Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, campaigning for Clinton in New Hampshire this week, also defended Clinton's vote as necessary for sanctions and diplomacy, and repeated that Clinton was against the use of force in Iran without congressional authorization.

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