In an unprecedented and treasonous move, 47 Republican Senators have sent a warning to Iran’s leaders via an open letter, signed by politicians such as Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, cautioning that if Iran dares to make a deal with President Obama promising not to develop a nuclear weapon, the deal would be worthless after Obama leaves the White House and Republicans can sabotage it.
You might be asking yourself, since when do Republicans like nuclear weapons? It seems strange that our conservative political party would try to sabotage such an agreement. Previously, Republicans such as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were not only open to negotiations regarding nuclear weapons, but they signed off on those agreements. Adding insult to injury, Republicans have spent the last few years scaremongering about Iran’s “nuclear threat”, but now that Pres. Obama is about to get them to sign an agreement to stop them from developing nuclear capability, they are hellbent on sabotaging it.
Well, it seems that Republicans just aren’t thinking clearly nowadays. Noam Chomsky, a respected political commentator, philosopher, and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pretty much summed the Republican party up in a recent interview with Democracy Now:
“For the Republicans in Congress, there’s another interest—namely, to undermine anything that Obama, you know, the entity Christ, might try to do. Their goal for the last years has simply been to undermine anything that Obama might do, in an effort to regain power and serve their primary constituency, which is the very wealthy and the corporate sector.”
This couldn’t be any more apparent than with this new stunt. The Republican Party’s treasonous letter not only tries to sabotage the agreement, but also attempts to give Congress authority in the matter. The letter reads:
“It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system … Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement. 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.”
Here’s the letter in full, below. If you’d like to see which Republicans signed it, click here.
“Iran’s ayatollahs need to know before agreeing to any nuclear deal that … any unilateral executive agreement is one they accept at their own peril.”
“If the deal is not submitted to Congress, I and many others will make clear that Barack Obama will be in office for 23 months and I will be in office for 6 years. And the Iranians should take that into their calculation as they negotiate with Barack Obama’s team.”
“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.”