Cowards, Traitors and Idiots

March 11, 2015

in International,Politics

Coward CokerHere I was, all ready to write letters of thanks to the two senators from my home state. Silly me.

Why would I even contemplate such an uncharacteristic act? I saw where Senators Coker and Lamar Alexander were among the seven Republican members of the Senate that did not sign the outrageous letter to the leadership of Iran. Traitorous may be a bit hyperbolic — but barely.

Initially, I felt that since I could not remember ever agreeing with either on any issue and had trashed them only a couple of the numerous times they deserved it, I was prepared to congratulate them for remaining rational and refusing to sign the letter.

Forty-seven idiots signed that unparalleled conflation of hubris, misinformation and stupidity. The ringleader was Baby Senator Tom Cotton, a wet-behind-the-ears clown from Arkansas that appears to consider himself knowledgeable about a broad range of subjects, despite his demonstrable monumental and comprehensive ignorance.

Traditionally, new members sit for a couple of years, learning from their seniors, before venturing to make their maiden speech on the floor of the Senate. That doesn’t obtain for a know-it-all.

In addition to embarrassing the Senate and the country (but apparently not himself), Tom stepped on the toes of Senator Coker. You see, Little Bobby Coker, though similarly unqualified on the subject of international affairs, is the GOP’s choice to chair the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Instead of dressing down Tom for his unprecedented behavior, his trampling of Bobby’s bailiwick and ignoring him, Mini Me failed to admit of any untoward action by the intruder. Coward. That should not have been unexpected, as I moved from Chattanooga to Nashville halfway through his term as mayor. Needless to say, he was no more impressive then than now — except, perhaps, to himself.

GOP Fucks USA

The Republicans, the Fox channel and Bob Coker claimed that Obama’s functioning as a president is supposed to, justifies the letter. The metaphor that comes to mind is of a little boy that fouls his trousers but tries to blame his baby brother. I’m surprised they don’t blame Obama for WWII.

Perhaps I am a trifle sensitive on the subject of foreign affairs, as I spent a considerable part of my life involved in that area. I have visited foreign countries far more times than Tom Cotton has visited his new office.

Tom presumes to educate the Iranian leadership on the US Constitution and system. Well, it turns out that the Iranian council members have far more education at major American universities than does Obama’s cabinet. The chief negotiator for Iran is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Zarif came to the US and attended a private college-preparatory high school in San Francisco. He took a BA and an MA in International relations from San Francisco State University, then another MA and a PhD in the same subject from the graduate school of the University of Denver. An alumna of that school of some note was Condoleezza Rice.

Here is the infamous letter, with all of it’s ignorance of the Constitution and other matters:

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.

Sincerely,

The combination of condescension and misinformation would be laughable, were it not so serious a matter. Basically, the signees are saying that you can’t trust them to negotiate in good faith . . . or, at all. The Iranian response is a masterpiece of a passive-aggressive rebuttal, written, somewhat strangely, in the third person. Watch a master of the subjects and real world diplomacy school the little brats of the GOP.

Asked about the open letter of 47 US Senators to Iranian leaders, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, responded that “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.”

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 that “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 Irans peaceful nuclear program.” He continued “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.”

The 47 Republicans include the entire Senate leadership and 3 presidential candidates. Still, they are all seemingly ignorant of the fact that the sainted Ronnie Reagan signed over 1,600 international executive agreements but a small fraction of that number of treaties, ratified by the Senate. I understand how they would want to forget his agreements known as “Iran-Contra.” They should wish to forget that Ronnie negotiated with Iran over the hostages – before he actually became president and sabotaged President Carter’s ongoing negotiations.

SabotageThis might have just been the Senate’s stab at matching the embarrassment of the House slobbering all over the Nutty yahoo. More likely, it was Cotton’s first move in his plan to run for president in 2020. You heard it here first.

If these yo-yos are hell-bent on the need for a treaty, I would suggest they read the United Nations Organization Treaty, which we wrote. The negotiations are being held under the auspices of the UN by the US, the other four permanent members of the Security Council and Germany. The sanctions most burdensome to Iran are those imposed by the other parties, not the US. For us to trash or ignore any agreement with those other parties would seriously damage US credibility. They and all of the other countries watching would hesitate or refuse to make agreements with a notoriously unreliable partner.

Why would Chairman Coker not complain of the imbecilic Tom Cotton? Because Little Bobby understands that there really is no difference between a bomb thrower like Cotton and a Republican that presents himself as a rational moderate. Is Coker a moderate or a lazy radical who lets the young kids throw the bombs? Remember the night of Obama’s First Inauguration? We later discovered that several Republican Congressmen met secretly that night to plan how to oppose everything Obama did in order to insure he only had one term. Apparently, they were also incompetent in that endeavor.

That was the 20th of January, 2009. The attendees were Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). Does that last name ring a bell? Could that possibly be the reasonable, moderate, across-the-aisle Senator Bob Coker? Since I may be more familiar with him than most of my readers, permit me to describe Bobby. He is a prima donna with a Napoleonic complex. He is wealthy. He is an elitist. His racism doesn’t stand out so much since there are so few people of any kind that he respects, except his own.

When he first arrived in the Senate, Coker said he was unqualified in the field of Foreign Relations. That hasn’t changed. However, it isn’t all that rare in Washington. The only people with any abilities in that area are Bill Richardson and sometimes Joe Biden. Both are underused because of all of the pretend experts, both on Capitol Hill and in the West Wing. Perhaps the Iranian Council could lend us some of their talent. It would be less problematical than the “talent” Wall Street forces on us.

Had EnoughBob Coker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Belfiore

A big thank you for your blog.Thanks Again. Much obliged.

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