This is a review of three articles pertaining
to the same topic from three different sources, one of which is a justification
written by the perpetrator himself. Since the topic is written about by three
authors representing two varying view points and one justification” piece, a
short writing about each author and their respective news outlets and current
careers, the rhetorical nature of their articles and my opinion will follow a
summary of each article. The articles in question are: “GOP Hates Obama More
Than a Nuclear Iran” by Leslie Gelb on thedailybeast.com – 3/10/15, “Is the
letter to Iran from 47 Republican senators correct about Congress' role in
nuclear deal?” by Louis Jacobson – 3/10/15 and finally the justification
article by Tom Cotton and released in The USA Today on March 10, 2015.
First
we will take a brief look at each author. Dr. Leslie Gelb was Executive
Assistant for Republican Senator from New York Jacob Javits from 1966 to 1967, He
was director of Policy Planning and Arms Control for International Security
Affairs at the Department of Defense from 1967 to 1969, winning the Pentagon's
highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal. Robert McNamara appointed Leslie
Gelb as director of the project that produced the controversial Pentagon Papers
on the Vietnam War. From 1969–1973, Dr. Gelb was a Senior Fellow at the
Brookings Institution. Currently Dr. Gelb also serves on the board of directors
of the Center for the National Interest, the advisory board of United Against
Nuclear Iran, the board of directors at the Diplomacy Center Foundation, and
the advisory board of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. He is Trustee Emeritus
of Tufts University. Dr.
Gelb is a contributor to The Daily Beast, a news aggregation site.
Louis Jacobson is a senior
writer for http://www.politifact.com and the Tampa Bay Times. Mr. Jacobson served as deputy editor of Roll
Call and as founding editor of its legislative wire service, “CongressNow”.
Earlier in his career, he spent more than a decade covering politics, policy
and lobbying for National Journal magazine.
He has received five minor writing awards from Capitolbeat, the
association of state capitol reporters and editors. He received the Weidenbaum
Center Award for Evidence-Based Journalism from Washington University in St.
Louis in 2014.
The final author is Tom
Cotton himself, a Tea Party darling, Cotton ran for a seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives as a Republican in Arkansas' 4th congressional district in the
2012 election when left open by a retiring Democrat and was endorsed by John
McCain at that time. He is a Junior Senator and has in the past been ridiculed
for writing papers about how the internet is not a tool for education among
other “ideas”.
The
organizations represented in the various articles fall along these political
lines. The first organization is TheDailyBeast, which is said to have liberal
leanings because of articles against shopping malls, shaming of Republican
intellects and a general slant toward people over business. Next is Politifact,
set up and run by the Tampa Bay Times this will obviously get the nod as
Liberal since it is run by an organization not owned by Rupert Murdoch. Finally
the USA Today, called Liberal by many, written on a 6th grade level
and easy to read with big bright charts and graphs.
The
articles represent their respective authors and their outlets well. The Leslie
Gelb Article starts in a very cutting way, “That letter to Iranian leaders from
47 Republican senators could well destroy critical bipartisanship in U.S.
foreign policy for years to come and treacherously undermine the bargaining
power of the person constitutionally authorized to conduct American affairs
abroad—the President of the United States.” Dr. Gelb points out that, “They
maintained, in effect, that this thing a President of the United States has
been negotiating will either be thrown out by Congress or discarded by the next
president, so don’t waste your time. Did the 47 even consider how future
Congresses would apply such words to future Presidents?” He summarizes his idea
well with this statement, “The White House was right on the mark in saying that
the only ones who rejoiced at the Republicans’ unintelligible rant were the
hardliners in Tehran. They don’t want the agreement either. Have these 47
Republican senators ever wondered if they might be green-lighting those in
Tehran who yearn for Iran to be a nuclear power?”
The
next article by Louis Jacobson speaks of
how future Representatives might see these talks in the future with, “A key
portion of the 286-word letter says that the undersigned senators "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.” As explained in the text that follows in the story, the letter is
wrong. There was no treaty signed requiring ratification. The Article states, “Treaties
with foreign countries are negotiated and signed by the executive branch, but
ratification only occurs after the Senate gives its approval in a two-thirds
vote. But there’s another kind of agreement beyond treaties -- indeed, they
represent a growing share of agreements in recent decades. They are known as
“executive agreements.” The procedure for treaties is spelled out in the
Constitution, but there’s little in the Constitution about executive
agreements. Their authority comes instead from longstanding practice, as well
as the support of such Supreme Court cases as United States vs. Belmont (1936), United
States vs. Pink (1941), and Dames and
Moore vs. Regan (1981). “Presidents since Washington have concluded such
agreements, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the president has the authority
to conclude such agreements,” said Anthony Clark Arend, a Georgetown University
professor of government and Foreign Service.
Finally
we come to the last of the articles, Tom Cotton himself writing in the USA
Today about why he drafted this missive and what it was intended to do. He
starts his justification by saying, “The critical role of Congress in the
adoption of international agreements was clearly laid out by our Founding
Fathers in our Constitution. And it's a principle upon which Democrats and
Republicans have largely agreed.” He surmises, “It's not often I agree with
former senator and now Vice President Biden, but his words here are clear. The
Senate must approve any deal President Obama negotiates with Iran by a
two-thirds majority vote. Anything less will not be considered a binding
agreement when President Obama's term expires in two years. This is true of any
agreement, but in particular with the nuclear deal President Obama intends to
strike with Iran. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the Obama
administration has so far completely bypassed Congress in its negotiations with
Iran. The administration cares little about what will win congressional
approval — only complete nuclear disarmament — and more about just reaching
some sort of deal. Regrettably, it appears the deal President Obama is
negotiating with Iran will not be a good one. In fact, if reports are correct,
it will be a bad one that will ultimately allow Iran to continue its nuclear
program and ultimately develop a nuclear weapon.” Throwing his fellow goofballs
under the bus by stating, “That is why this week, I, along with 46 of my fellow
senators, wrote Iranian leaders to inform them of the role Congress plays in
approving their agreement. Our goal is simple: to stop Iran from obtaining a
nuclear weapon. In fact, then-Sen. Joe Biden once reflected on this very topic,
writing that “the president and the Senate are partners in the process by which
the United States enters into, and adheres to, international obligations.”
My
opinion, Tom Cotton needs a serious civics lesson. It is not the place of
Congress to overstep the President in international talks. War of 1812,
Spanish-American, WWI, WWII, Korea, and for Vietnam they couldn’t wait to give
the Tonkin Resolution for war powers, same for Bush in his wars of choice. Harkening
back to the The Treaty of Tripoli (Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the
United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary) signed
by John Adams at Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and at Algiers (for a third-party
witness) on January 3, 1797. It was submitted to the Senate by President Adams
and received ratification unanimously from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797, and
was again signed by Adams into law on June 10, 1797. I particularly love
article eleven of that treaty which states, “As the Government of the United
States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as
it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or
tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and as the said States never entered into
any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is
declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall
ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
We do not sponsor a state religion no matter what republicans keep trying to
say. Every President including George Washington has talked with other nations,
made policy and handed out Executive Orders. Obama has given less Executive
Orders than many other Presidents including Republican hero Ronald Reagan who
gave 381 during his two terms and GW who gave 291. The Congressional Historical
Society couldn’t cite one instance of this type of situation in the past. John
McCain back tracked within a few days of signing the letter by saying, “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.” Cotton’s actions have
even been dismissed by Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif who said, “In
our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy. It is very interesting that while
negotiations are still in progress and while no agreement has been reached,
some political pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an
agreement that they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in
diplomatic history. This indicates that
like Netanyahu, who considers peace as an existential threat, some are opposed
to any agreement, regardless of its content.” He also stated, “I should bring
one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is
not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by
international law, and not by US domestic law. The authors may not fully
understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their
respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are
required to fulfil the obligations they undertake with other states and may not
invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their
international obligations. This is not an agreement between Iran and the US
President, but an international agreement with at least five nations involved.”
This is a correct statement showing these dolts are clueless about how our
nation is run. Maybe they should look into the 1799 Logan Act, a US federal law
that forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments
having a dispute with the US.
I see no other reasoning
behind a lot of the actions of our current and former Congressional
Representatives during the Obama administration than utter racism. No other
President has had shouts of “Liar” during a State of the Union Address. No
other President has had such a divided group of Representatives against him
beyond Abraham Lincoln, and that led to a Civil War over race and slavery. It
is generally accepted that a President puts down political ideals in lieu of
what is best for the nation in his opinion. That is why he gets the Executive
chair. This was a bad mistake, and if Democrats ever grow a backbone and become
as vindictive as Republicans seem to be, then we are in for about 100 years of
torment given to us by our own elected officials.
SOURCES:
