WASHINGTON, 26 Sep (IPS) - In a significant and highly unusual defeat for the so-called 'Israel Lobby', the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives has decided to shelve a long-pending, albeit non-binding, resolution that called for President George W. Bush to launch what critics called a blockade against Iran.

House Congressional Resolution (HR) 362, whose passage the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) had made its top legislative priority this year, had been poised to pass virtually by acclamation last summer.

But an unexpectedly strong lobbying effort by a number of grassroots Iranian-American, Jewish-American, peace, and church groups effectively derailed the initiative, although AIPAC and its supporters said they would try to revive it next year or if Congress returns to Washington for a 'lame-duck' session after the November elections.

Congress, which may still adopt a package of new unilateral economic sanctions against Iran -- some of which the administration has already imposed -- over the weekend, is expected to adjourn over the next several days.

''We'll resubmit it when Congress comes back, and we'll have even more signatures,'' the resolution's main author, New York Democrat Rep. Gary Ackerman, told the Washington Times, adding that the resolution currently has 270 co-sponsors, or some two-thirds of the House's entire membership.

Still, the decision by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard Berman, to shelve HR 362 marked an unusual defeat for AIPAC, according to its critics who charged that the resolution was designed to lay the groundwork for the Bush administration or any successor administration to take military action against Iran.

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One clause in the resolution also stated that 'nothing in this resolution shall be construed as an authorization of the use of force against Iran,' even though a blockade against Iran could be construed as an act of war under international law.

The two key Democratic congressmen, who had initially co-sponsored the resolution, Reps. Robert Wexler and Barney Frank, defected in July after they insisted that the language of the resolution be changed to exclude any possibility that it could be used to justify war against Iran.

The resolution was introduced last May, shortly after AIPAC's annual meeting. At that time,-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly told the House Democratic leadership that economic sanctions against Iran had run their course and that stronger action, including a possible naval quarantine, was needed. The meeting followed talks between Olmert and Bush who informed that Washington would almost certainly not attack Iran's nuclear facilities nor give a green light Israel to launch an attack of its own before he leaves office.

With typical arrogance, AIPAC went over Bush's head and pushed for adoption of the resolution, even though it was not designed to justify any military action, which AIPAC was clearly pushing for.

But just who runs this country and its foreign policy? I suspect that we have not heard the last to this! AIPAC and the Neocons got us into Iraq, and it will not give up until it gets us into Iran. The former conflict will cost the US taxpayers a trillion dollars before it ends. Can we afford another Iraq?

Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy, and particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.