Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) lashed out Monday at the release of a letter from 47 Senate Republicans warning Iranian leaders against a deal with western powers as "a hard slap in the face" to President Obama's diplomatic negotiations.
Reid said it was unprecedented for one congressional party to "directly intervene" with foreign leaders as they were trying to reach a deal with the U.S. administration, as Obama and five other western leaders are attempting to do in negotiations that would halt Iran's efforts to produce nuclear power for military use.
"This is not a time to undermine our commander in chief purely out of spite," Reid said Monday afternoon as the Senate opened up for the week. "We should always have robust debate about foreign policy but it's unprecedented for one political party to directly intervene in an international negotiation with the sole goal of embarrassing the president of the United States."
[What an 18th century non-war with France has to do with the Senate’s letter to Iran ]
Reid delivered his 10-minute speech attacking the ethos of the GOP action as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the freshman who organized the letter, served as the presiding officer sitting in the chair overseeing the floor debate. On Sunday, Cotton's letter went public and set off a firestorm of criticism on the left but drew deep support on the right.
The GOP senators suggested that the Iranian leaders might not understand the U.S. government and warned them that a future Republican president could invalidate any pact and Congress work to subvert it. "The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time," Cotton and his 46 peers wrote.
That drew sharp reaction from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, who said that the ongoing efforts to impede the six-nation talks with Iran could blow up any deal and send the West into a worse position with Iranian leaders. "The rush to war or at least the rush to the military option that many Republicans are advocating is not at all in the best interest of the United States," Earnest said.
Other Democrats agreed. “This is a highly inappropriate and unprecedented incursion into the president’s prerogative to conduct foreign affairs and is not befitting this chamber. "This letter only serves one purpose—to destroy an ongoing negotiation to reach a diplomatic agreement in its closing days," Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
In a Monday morning appearance, Cotton defended his letter as an effort to outline all the constitutional steps in our government. "Many Iran experts say that Iran's leaders don't understand our Constitution," Cotton said on Fox News. "So they need to understand that under our Constitution, Congress plays a very important role of approving international agreements. And any deal that isn't approved by the Congress won't be accepted by the Congress, now or in the future."
But Reid accused Republicans of being unwilling to accept Obama as president. "They cannot accept the fact that this good man, Barack Obama, this man with the unusual name, was elected twice by overwhelming margins by the people of this country. And for him doing his very best to try to alleviate a problem."
[WorldViews: The misguided, condescending letter from Republican senators to Iran]
Paul Kane covers Congress and politics for the Washington Post.
0 comments:
Post a Comment