Re: Obama Blasts Republicans Over Letter to Iranian Leadership
Their skepticism doesn't make them childish. Their relentless substance-free, base rousing theatrics do that.
Here is the text:
It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system. Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution—the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices—which you should seriously consider as negotiations progress.
First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate). Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.
Second, the offices of our Constitution have different characteristics. For example, the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms. As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades.
What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. 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.
We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress.
The idea that Republicans in Congress - who
just folded on amnesty - are "relentless" is laughable.
Principally, the Republicans have no business torpedoing this treaty because no great deeds are forthcoming on their part.
Oh, it's a treaty?!? Because if it's a
treaty, then the President is
Constitutionally required to send it to the Senate for approval, which the White House has announced it will refuse to do.
They aren't willing to follow it up with an alternative other than more saber rattling. Rattling sabers didn't stop North Korea from getting the bomb,
We didn't saber-rattle to get North Korea to stop. We did.... pretty much what we are doing now when North Korea was getting the bomb. We don't learn, it seems.
and Iran is much more capable. They'll succeed sooner or later if they want to.
Unless we, or the Israelis, decide to stop them.
Every U.S. boot in the Middle East lets ISIS recruit 20 more farmers from the field.
That's a fascinating claim. Can you support it? I know quite a few people in the DoD who would be terribly interested in hearing that, as it has almost no connection at all to what we see on the ground
Its a premature fulfillment of the Caliphate Osama bin Laden hoped to accomplish by baiting America into the Middle East.
True enough. Lucky for us, (if rough on the Syrians, Iraqi's, Libyans, and Copts) eh?
I'll also point all that the treaty loses us nothing.
Sure it does. It changes our position from "A nuclear Iran is unacceptable and all options to stop that
are on the table" to "An Iran with a the bomb is something we want to avoid
during the current administration". If that is incorrect, then I look forward to hearing Democrats make that case. In the Senate.
If the Iranians break it, we can pursue alternatives as planned. If they don't break it and we want to pursue those alternatives anyway, the State Department of the sitting president can simply declare that they broke it,
Lol, are you sure you aren't throwing a childish fit? That is precisely what the Republicans said.
Establishing diplomatic and economic relations with Iran at least boxes their government between a rock in a hard place between pursuing nuclear capability and bringing their people jobs and prosperity.
The question becoming A) the Iranians have a well-developed denial and deception capacity, especially with regards to their nuclear program so B) what's the likelihood we would be able to stop them in time? Answer: Low. In the meantime, we give them breathing space and capability while lending legitimacy and aid to the worlds' largest terror exporter; hardly a win.