Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Republican senators openly try to sabotage Iran nuclear talks

It’s a sad, sad day in this country when Iran lectures our government, and they’re right. Yesterday, 47 of the 54 GOP senator’s sent a letter to the "leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran" warning them not to make any deal with Obama -- because it could be overturned once he leaves office. This was done while the Administration is involved in very delicate negotiations with Iran on nuclear weapons.

Lead by war monger Sen. Tom Cotton (R. Ark), the traitorous Republican buffoons who tried to do an end run around the President are being roundly and justly castigated for their outrageous behavior, even by members of their own party. This deliberate attempt to sabotage American foreign policy and President Obama is being called traitorous by some and is pretty clearly a violation of the Logan Act, which reads:

"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

The Administration has signaled it won’t pursue this, which is a shame, but on some levels understandable. On top of everything else, the author’s of the patronizing letter flubbed a point about our own Constitution, and was then lectured by the Iranian negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif in his response.

"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 fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations. A change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor.”

The embarrassing action of Cotton and his co-conspirators demonstrates once again that the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party cares far less for this country than it does its own demented and dangerous ideological agenda.

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