By the way, as of March 12th 9:55 PM EDT, the top google result on the word "Treason" is an article about this letter. Now admittedly that article is explaining (correctly) why the letter is not Treason (although it may be criminal).
Still thats the top result just for the word Treason. So, when what you did tops that list I'm pretty sure thats a leading indicator that someone (read 47 republican senators) massively massively fucked up. In fact this has gotten so much attention, that even right wing websites are reporting the petition on whitehouse.gov demanding the republican's be charged with treason absolutely shattered the required number of signatures needed to get a white house response (the standard is 100,000 signatures in 30 days. As of yesterday, 2 days after the petition went up, it had 165,000 signatures, As of right now, it has 255,156 signatures.....or double and half again the required number....in 1/10 the time).
And here's the thing, potentially being seen as treasonous, isnt even the only problem in this letter.
Before we go any farther, the Obama administration is currently involved in negotiations to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb presumably by lifting trade sanctions in exchange for Iran to stop nuclear development and allow for regular inspections
Now with that in mind here is the letter itself:
"An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran:
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."
Yea thats right. The senate of the United States (or 47 of its members) just wrote to the Iranian government saying that our government cant be trusted to hold up our end of the deal if you agree to not develop a nuke.
Starting to see the problem yet?
Now shockingly the letter actually got a response from Iran, per Iran's state controlled news
[Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad] Zarif expressed astonishment that some members of US Congress find it appropriate to write to leaders of another country against their own President and administration. He pointed out that from reading the open letter, it seems that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.
Foreign Minister Zarif added, “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.”
The Iranian Foreign Minister added that “change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor in a possible agreement about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.”
“I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with ‘the stroke of a pen,’ as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law.”
He emphasized that if the current negotiation with P5+1 result in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.
Zarif expressed the hope that his comments “may enrich the knowledge of the authors to recognize that according to international law, Congress may not ‘modify the terms of the agreement at any time’ as they claim, and if Congress adopts any measure to impede its implementation, it will have committed a material breach of US obligations.”
The Foreign Minister also informed the authors that majority of US international agreements in recent decades are in fact what the signatories describe as “mere executive agreements” and not treaties ratified by the Senate.
He reminded them that “their letter in fact undermines the credibility of thousands of such ‘mere executive agreements’ that have been or will be entered into by the US with various other governments.”
Zarif concluded by stating that “the Islamic Republic of Iran has entered these negotiations in good faith and with the political will to reach an agreement, and it is imperative for our counterparts to prove similar good faith and political will in order to make an agreement possible.”
Now of course, this appears to be a case of He said/He said right? So how do we know who's right? lets go to the website of the United States Senate and see what they have to say about it.
Turns out they side overwhelmingly with the Iranian.....
"In addition to treaties, which may not enter into force and become binding on the United States without the advice and consent of the Senate, there are other types of international agreements concluded by the executive branch and not submitted to the Senate. These are classified in the United States as executive agreements, not as treaties, a distinction that has only domestic significance. International law regards each mode of international agreement as binding, whatever its designation under domestic law."
" According to a 1984 study by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, "88.3 percent of international agreements reached between 1946 and 1972 were based at least partly on statutory authority; 6.2 percent were treaties, and 5.5 percent were based solely on executive authority."
"The Constitution is silent about how treaties might be terminated."
Translation: While republicans got the name right, literally everything else goes to Iran. Most "treaties" arnt the treaties in the constitutional sense, but treaties in the international law sense. (this agreement for the record would most likely fit under the 93.8% of things the senate has no say on), and its actually not clear the president or next congress could modify the agreement with the stroke of a pen.
There is also one other very embarrassing thing on the Senate.gov website the Iranian foreign minister was nice enough not to mention.
You know that whole bit in the GOP letter "First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. "?
Well it turns out, per the Senate.gov website.....thats not true. "The Senate does not ratify treaties"
What they do instead is: the Senate approves or rejects a resolution of ratification. If the resolution passes, then ratification takes place when the instruments of ratification are formally exchanged between the United States and the foreign power(s)
Now, yes at the end of the day, the treaty cant move forward without senate consent, but still when you start your letter "It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system." and it turns out the very point of which you are writing about is wrong (even if only via technicality) thats kinda embarrassing.
And that's only after the recipient of the letter writes a response showing he knows more about the subject than you.....and is supported by your own website.
So yea massively embarrassing website. Republicans attempted to show their expertise on the american government (which, you know, by virtue of being the american government they should kinda have) and instead get shown to be too fucking stupid to read their own job descriptions......
And all of that is before we get into the PR aspect of this. You know, the one that puts the Republican party on the same side as the radical militant Islamist in Iran, and against the concept of peace.....yea, thats gotta be the worlds strangest bedfellows ever.
All of which probably explains why republicans are running for the hills, trying to get as far away from this letter as they can, as fast as they can.
It started off as a slow walk away, when the day after the letter was published, this got reported:(per the dailybeast)
" Two GOP aides separately described their letter as a “cheeky” reminder of the congressional branch’s prerogatives.
“The administration has no sense of humor when it comes to how weakly they have been handling these negotiations,” said a top GOP Senate aide.""
Translation Well yea of course this letter looks bad.....if you think we actually meant it, we were just kidding.
Which then turned into a slow jog with comments like this:
"I also understand the frustration when this president has done everything in his power to prevent awareness on the part of congressional leadership on exactly what the terms under consideration are, or his willingness to sit down with Congress and talk about the legislation they are trying to pass right now, I think if we had a president who had engaged more in understanding that Congress has a very critical role in all elements of government, we could avoid this type of sad situation." (-George Pataki. One example of many like this)
Translation: Yea it was a fucking stupid letter. But Obama made us do it. Blame Obama. No really PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE blame Obama cause we cant accept we were that stupid.
Which has now turning into a full rout with comments like this:
“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.”
Translation: hey come on, we didnt even read the thing, so you cant assume we support it.
Oh, by the way, that statement was made by John McCain, who actually signed the letter. Was also the Republican Nominee for president a while back. Just, you know, in case people only think its political lightweights running away.
And he's not the only one: In fact most of the other signers have already passed over into the land of denial. Again as example. Senator Pat Toomey:
“That letter is just the most recent case of my doing all that I can to prevent Iran from having a nuclear bomb.”
Translation: That letter I signed, the one that said "dont trust the americans if they ask you to give up your bombs cause they will change the agreement after the fact" well thats actually three dimensional opposite day political chess game for "you should totally trust the americans and give up your nukes.
Finally we get to the ultimate in republican backpeddle, presumed presidential candidate Rand Paul:
""I'm kinda one of the Senators who's in favor of negotiations with Iran, I want there to be a peaceful outcome. But I want to strengthen the president's hand. I want to strengthen his hand by saying, you know what, we've got a lot of hardliners, and we're going to have to get this agreement by Congress and by doing so maybe the president will negotiate a more appropriate deal"
Translation: I undercut the negotiations because I'm in favor of them. AND I AGREE WITH OBAMA ON THEM AND I WANT TO HELP OBAMA DO BETTER.
Think about that. For the first time in 6+ years we have a high level republican saying basically they agree with President Obama on something.
Not only that, but the high level republican is presumably running for president in 2016 on a party wide platform of repudiate EVERYTHING Obama/democrats ever did. Yet even he is now forced to look like he likes and agrees with Obama just to get his ass out of the fire.
So yea, if that doesnt show just how fucking deep the shit is the republicans put themselves in on this one, just how badly they miscalculated, that they now have to claim they are either bad at their jobs (McCain) and/or support Obama (Paul) literally nothing will.
But on the upside no one gives a shit anymore about John Boehner violating all kinds of diplomatic and governmental norms by inviting Netuyahu. So you know, at least one republican probably sees this letter as a good thing......
Translation: I undercut the negotiations because I'm in favor of them. AND I AGREE WITH OBAMA ON THEM AND I WANT TO HELP OBAMA DO BETTER.
Think about that. For the first time in 6+ years we have a high level republican saying basically they agree with President Obama on something.
Not only that, but the high level republican is presumably running for president in 2016 on a party wide platform of repudiate EVERYTHING Obama/democrats ever did. Yet even he is now forced to look like he likes and agrees with Obama just to get his ass out of the fire.
So yea, if that doesnt show just how fucking deep the shit is the republicans put themselves in on this one, just how badly they miscalculated, that they now have to claim they are either bad at their jobs (McCain) and/or support Obama (Paul) literally nothing will.
But on the upside no one gives a shit anymore about John Boehner violating all kinds of diplomatic and governmental norms by inviting Netuyahu. So you know, at least one republican probably sees this letter as a good thing......
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