Some Republican Senators
published an open letter on March 9 to the Ayatollah Khamenei and his
government in Iran, trying to influence Iranian behavior in negotiations
with the US, Germany, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom about its
nuclear program. At least that’s what they said they were doing.
It has happened before that
people outside of a significant international negotiation have chimed in,
trying to push their own agenda. It is not unprecedented in American history
for a political party to advocate a foreign policy of its own, even when it
does not have executive power. But for both to happen, for members of one
Congressional party to throw doubt on the position of the President, while he
and other world leaders are dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat, that’s unique.
As a declaration of their
foreign policy, it is even more important than the Republican Congressional
invitation to Israeli President Netanyahu. That invitation to speak on March 3
was a deliberate insult to our President, so nothing new in Republican
treatment of Obama. But then Republicans only committed themselves to listen to
Netanyahu. A week later they
declared themselves.
“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....”
Here is what this letter
reveals about Republican foreign policy: it’s not serious.
The letter was written by
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, the youngest and newest member of the Senate. He
has no foreign policy experience, but he has clear views. In 2013, in his first
term as Representative from Arkansas, Cotton offered an
amendment to punish family members of people who violate U.S. sanctions
against Iran. He said punishment would include “a spouse and any relative to
the third degree, parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents,
great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids.” He said further, “There would
be no investigation. If the prime malefactor of the family is identified as on
the list for sanctions, then everyone within their family would automatically
come within the sanctions regime as well. It’d be very hard to demonstrate and
investigate to conclusive proof.” No proof needed, just put the great
grandchildren in jail.
During his Senate campaign in
the fall, he
warned, “Groups like the Islamic State collaborate with drug cartels in
Mexico who have clearly shown they’re willing to expand outside the drug trade
into human trafficking and potentially even terrorism. They could infiltrate
our defenseless border and attack us right here in places like Arkansas.” It
turned out some conservative website had cooked up this idea with no evidence.
Just after he took the oath
of office to become a Senator in January, Cotton told
the Heritage Foundation on Jan. 15 that he wanted to kill the 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.”
When presented with Cotton’s
quite radical views about dealing with Iran, 46 other Republican senators
signed on at lunch. There was no discussion. Senator John
McCain explained that, “It was kind of a very rapid process. Everybody was
looking forward to getting out of town because of the snowstorm. I think we
probably should have had more discussion about it, given the blowback that there
is.” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, Republican from
Tennessee, did
not sign it. He
said, “I immediately knew that it was not something that, for me anyway, in
my particular role, was going to be constructive.” His analysis didn’t seem to
matter to other Republicans.
So leading Republicans get
behind a freshman Senator’s untutored an extremist foreign policy. Didn’t any
of them have a better idea? Why not discuss the letter with Republican
presidential candidates who are not in the Senate, before speculating on what
one of them might do if elected? Would a future Republican President really
disavow an international agreement of his Democratic predecessor, thus
disdaining all fellow signatories, including our closest allies in Europe?
Who is the letter’s audience?
It was never actually a letter – the Republicans sent nothing to Iran. They
simply issued
a press release in English. The last Republican President labeled Khamenei’s
government the “Axis of
Evil”, which Republicans have continued to treat as an outlaw.
Senator Cotton and his
colleagues were addressing the American voting public. Republicans are thinking
about how one of their number could become the next President. That’s
especially true for three of the signatories: Senators Rand Paul (KY), Ted Cruz
(TX) and Marco Rubio (FL) are all running for President.
Like other Republican efforts
to repudiate anything that President Obama does, the letter does not go beyond
short-term political calculation. The only hint we get about what Republicans
would do about foreign policy if they had executive power is this: all they
care about is temporary domestic political advantage.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
Published in the Jacksonville
Journal-Courier, March 17, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment