Senate GOP letter to Iran stokes debate

WASHINGTON – Anger and outrage grew Tuesday over a letter from Senate Republicans to Iranian leaders designed to scuttle a yet-to-be-completed deal on its nuclear program.

Congressional Democrats and independents, even some who question a deal with Iran, called the letter authored by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., an unprecedented act of political sabotage aimed at President Barack Obama.

“I cannot imagine the Congress of the United States writing a letter to Khrushchev in the midst of those discussions and saying, ‘Don’t worry about this guy Kennedy, he doesn’t speak for our country,’ ” said Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, harkening back to the tense Cuban missile crisis showdown between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. “And yet that essentially is what took place (Monday).”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif dismissed the letter as “mostly a propaganda ploy” designed to undermine the talks between his country, the United States and five other world powers.

“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 U.S. domestic law,” Zarif said in a statement reported by Fars News Agency.

The 47 Republican signers held firm Tuesday, saying that offering their opinion of a nuclear deal in a message to Tehran’s leaders fulfilled part of their “advise and consent” role as senators.

“We have held for some time here in Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, that we ought to become more involved in foreign policy,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.

The support was not unanimous.

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was one of seven Senate Republicans who refused to sign. He said Tuesday he “didn’t think it was going to further our efforts to get a place where Congress would play the appropriate role that it should in the Iran negotiations.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said, “I doubt very much whether the ayatollah would be moved by an explanation of our constitutional system,” referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Cotton was angry at Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator, who called the letter “beneath the dignity of an institution I revere” in a scathing statement late Monday evening.

Biden “has been wrong about nearly every major foreign policy and national security decision in the last 40 years,” Cotton said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “If Joe Biden so respects the dignity of the institution of the Senate, he should be insisting that the president submit any deal to (the) approval of the Senate.”

In his letter, Cotton informed Iranian leaders that “Congress plays a significant role” in ratifying agreements and that anything not approved by Congress is “nothing more than an executive agreement between President Barack Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei.”

He warned that a nuclear deal probably wouldn’t survive beyond Obama’s presidency.

The Obama administration continued to vent its anger Tuesday. White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz called the letter “reckless,” “irresponsible,” “misguided,” and “a flagrant, partisan attempt to interfere with the negotiations.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took time in her news conference defending her use of personal email during her tenure at Foggy Bottom to denounce the letter.

“Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander in chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy,” she said. “Either answer does discredit the letters’ signatories.”