A cheer for the congressman from the Bronx, Eliot Engel, whose leadership removed from legislation under consideration by the House a provision that would have tied President Bush’s hands in dealing with Iran. The provision Mr. Engel helped to kill would have required Mr. Bush to get explicit permission from Congress before taking military action against Iran. Mr. Engel had help from a congressman from Queens, Gary Ackerman, who said at a recent hearing, “The world’s response to Iran has been too slow and too soft.”

Those tempted to underestimate the guts it takes to act like this in today’s Democratic Party may consider that Mr. Engel’s position and Mr. Ackerman’s position puts them at odds with that of Senator Clinton, who is among the most hawkish Democrats in the war on Islamic terrorism and whom the two congressmen have endorsed for the presidency. Mrs. Clinton said in a speech on the Senate floor on February 14, “If the administration believes that any, any use of force against Iran is necessary, the president must come to Congress to seek that authority.” The supposedly centrist Democratic Leadership Council, yesterday issued a call for “a serious push to forge a ‘grand bargain’ with Iran,” through diplomacy, asserting that American financial aid to Iranian opposition groups “would only discredit them.”

Even if one doesn’t think the time is right for immediate military action against Iran, a congressional action that explicitly prohibits it has the effect of stripping American diplomacy of the backing of the credible threat of the use of force. Thanks to Mr. Ackerman and Mr. Engel, Mr. Bush will still have that threat — and full authority, which may well be necessary in defending New Yorkers and all Americans against the terror-sponsoring, Holocaust-denying, nuclear-bomb-building regime in Tehran.