Iran nuclear talks: US Senators play hardball with Obama

M. Serajul Islam | Published: March 19, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

Iran and the US met in the Swiss city of Lausanne this week to come up with a framework agreement by March 31. This would allow time to both the sides to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue diplomatically. The agreement would sidetrack what Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants: the US Congress back dismantling of the diplomatic initiative and end Iran's alleged attempts to build nuclear bomb by harsh economic sanctions and even physical attack, if necessary.
The first day of the talks that was held on March 16 between US Secretary John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lasted five hours but hit a major roadblock. The roadblock was not because the two sides were unprepared or had any problems with their respective briefs. The roadblock came from an unbelievable, surreal source. The source was a letter that 47 US Senators jointly addressed to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to caution Iran in no uncertain terms not to trust their own President! The unbelievable part of the letter read: "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."
The letter nevertheless carried weight because three in the group namely Marc Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, have each a good chance of getting the Republican Party's nomination for the president and leading Republican Senators Mitch McConnell, John McCain and Lindsey Graham also signed the letter. The letter has now become a major roadblock to President Obama's diplomatic initiative to deal with Iran's nuclear issue. It has also seriously embarrassed the US and its President. President Obama tried his best to laugh out the ridiculous and absurd nature of the letter but that was not enough to hide his anger and contempt. In a poll, 49 per cent Americans said the Senators were wrong in writing the letter with 39 per cent favouring it.
The Republicans made it their number one agenda to obstruct President Obama from doing anything that would allow him to lead the American nation from the first day he entered the White House. Leading to the US mid-term elections in November last year, the Republicans felt that with the economy in poor health and the White House stuck with immigration; healthcare and foreign affairs issues, they would be able to condemn President Obama as one of the worst-ever Presidents of the US. Their success in November in winning both the Houses of Congress encouraged them to go for the kill and turn the remaining two years of Obama's second and last term as those of a lame duck President. They appeared pretty certain that they would be to make the White House dance to their tune by their control of the Congress.
To their surprise, they found the President eager to fight them back with executive orders on issues opposed by the Congress. His executive order on immigration that allowed 5 of the 11 million illegal immigrants to seek legal permission to stay in the US angered the Republicans in the Congress who threatened to impeach him unsuccessfully. The President's determination to fight the Congress was helped by the return of the US economy to full health that pushed the President's approval rating upward. The Affordable Care Act or Obamacare also started to show signs of succeeding. Thus when Obama went to the Congress in January for delivering his State of the Union address, he had solid achievements to command respect and support of the majority of Americans.   
The Republicans in the Congress, instead of acknowledging the President's successes reacted with a very unusual step. They chose the President's diplomatic initiative on Iran's nuclear issue to attack and humiliate him. House Speaker John Boehner invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of the Congress against the White House's diplomatic initiative. It trashed the expressed wish of the White House that a visiting head of state/government should not be received in the country when his visit is within two weeks of an election in his country. Nearly 60 Democrat Congressmen stayed away from Netanyahu's address. Fifty-four per cent of Israelis did not want their Prime Minister to undertake the visit. The largest Jewish lobby in USA, the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) also opposed the visit because it felt it would affect adversely US-Israel relations.
The controversial letter of the 45 Senators to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was addressed to follow up the invitation extended to the Israeli Prime Minister. The Senators defended the letter because they argued that the White House did not consult the Congress over its diplomatic initiative with Iran. The argument is a very poor one. First, there has not yet been any agreement with Iran as yet. The two sides are seeking only a framework agreement on which to discuss and conclude the agreement. Second, the US Constitution empowers the President "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur....".
By the first argument, the 45 Congressmen hastened in writing their letter because they could only fault the President after an agreement has been concluded not before. By the second, the President could be faulted constitutionally and legally only if he failed to take the agreement to the Senate after it has been concluded. A US-Iran agreement to resolve Iran's nuclear crisis diplomatically is still a long away from conclusion. Therefore, the Senators had no legal and/or constitutional right to write the letter.
Therefore, the letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not been just unusual but also unconstitutional. The legal and constitutional arguments notwithstanding, writing to the country's arch enemy to humiliate the US President and that too in public has exposed fundamental problems in current state of affairs in US politics. The Republicans in Congress have exposed their intention to attack and humiliate Obama without caring for the USA's pride and prestige in world affairs, even telling the rest of the world that their President is untrustworthy!  If they had cared for their country, they would have taken note of Khamenei's reaction to the letter of the Senators. The Ayatollah said, "We are concerned about fate of nuclear talks because other side is 'deceitful and back-biting' and "that Tehran will take no lessons from Washington." The Republican Senators are now in total denial of everything else, even the Ayatollah's comments of being 'deceitful' because of their total commitment and determination to humiliate their elected President at any cost.
A career diplomat, the writer is a former Ambassador.
ambserajulislam@gmail.com