Poisoning the water
by digby
A group of 47 Republican senators has written an open letter to Iran’s leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with President Barack Obama’s administration won’t last after Obama leaves office.
Organized by freshman Senator Tom Cotton and signed by the chamber’s entire party leadership as well as potential 2016 presidential contenders Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, the letter is meant not just to discourage the Iranian regime from signing a deal but also to pressure the White House into giving Congress some authority over the process.
I told you Tom Cotton was a force to be reckoned with. Damn.
Oh, and in case you were wondering if this is really just a ploy to give the administration a “stronger hand” as Senator Mark Kirk said, think again. Here’s Cotton last week:
The United States must cease all appeasement, conciliation and concessions towards Iran, starting with the sham nuclear negotiations. Certain voices call for congressional restraint, urging Congress not to act now lest Iran walk away from the negotiating table, undermining the fabled yet always absent moderates in Iran. But, the end of these negotiations isn’t an unintended consequence of Congressional action, it is very much an intended consequence. A feature, not a bug, so to speak.[Emphasis added.]
Real men go to Tehran.
Oh, and note that one of the Real Men is the isolationist peace candidate Rand Paul.
Update: Even the Villagers are shocked. (Note how they say “the political world is still obsessing over Clinton’s emails” when they mean themselves.)
We know that the political world is still obsessing over Hillary Clinton’s emails — and it’s possible we could hear from Hillary on the subject sooner rather than later — but there’s a more stunning political story this morning. As the United States, western nations, China, and Russia are negotiating with Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions, 47 Senate Republicans led by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) have made an extraordinary — if not unprecedented — countermove: They’ve sent an open letter to Iran to suggest they can undo whatever President Obama’s administration agrees to. “First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them… Second … President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades.” This is extraordinary, because for a GOP Congress that objects to Obama overstepping his bounds, the president is commander-in-chief and conducts the nation’s foreign policy. Just asking, but what countermove is more over the top — Netanyahu’s speech from last week, or this letter trying to scuttle a deal before it even happens? Let’s officially retire the phrase that politics stops at the water’s edge. Because it just isn’t true.
By the way, seven GOP senators didn’t sign the Cotton letter: Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Bob Corker, Dan Coats, Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, and Rob Portman. Still, 87% of the Senate GOP caucus signed this letter. It’s stunning. And it’s a rebuke on an international stage that doesn’t really have a precedent. Imagine Democrats micro-managing the START talks in the 80s by sending an open letter to Gorbachev? It just wouldn’t have been viewed as an acceptable political move while the talks were still happening.
Update II: Former Bush administration official and Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith schools the Senators a little bit on the constitution:
Josh Rogin reports that a “group of 47 Republican senators has written an open letter to Iran’s leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with President Barack Obama’s administration won’t last after Obama leaves office.” Here is the letter. Its premise is that Iran’s leaders “may not fully understand our constitutional system,” and in particular may not understand the nature of the “power to make binding international agreements.” It appears from the letter that the Senators do not understand our constitutional system or the power to make binding agreements.
The letter states that “the Senate must ratify [a treaty] by a two-thirds vote.” But as the Senate’s own web page makes clear: “The Senate does not ratify treaties. Instead, the Senate takes up a resolution of ratification, by which the Senate formally gives its advice and consent, empowering the president to proceed with ratification” (my emphasis). Or, as this outstanding 2001 CRS Report on the Senate’s role in treaty-making states (at 117): “It is the President who negotiates and ultimately ratifies treaties for the United States, but only if the Senate in the intervening period gives its advice and consent.” Ratification is the formal act of the nation’s consent to be bound by the treaty on the international plane. Senate consent is a necessary but not sufficient condition of treaty ratification for the United States. As the CRS Report notes: “When a treaty to which the Senate has advised and consented … is returned to the President,” he may “simply decide not to ratify the treaty.”
This is a technical point that does not detract from the letter’s message that any administration deal with Iran might not last beyond this presidency. (I analyzed this point here last year.) But in a letter purporting to teach a constitutional lesson, the error is embarrassing.
Not to To Cotton it isn’t. Such technicalities are the last things he cares about.
.