29 Mar 2024
Wednesday 11 March 2015 - 15:49
Story Code : 155039

Republicans admit: That Iran letter was a dumb idea

Republicans admit: That Iran letter was a dumb idea


[caption id="attachment_155041" align="alignright" width="236"]U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is pictured April 2, 2013. (Kristin M. Hall/AP) U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is pictured April 2, 2013. (Kristin M. Hall/AP)[/caption]

A day after releasing a letter that potentially threatened the administrations negotiations with Iran, some Republicans who signed on are realizing it was a bad call.
Behind the scenes, Republicans are wondering if sending an open letter to Irans leaders was the best strategy to keep a bad nuclear deal from being negotiated.

Earlier this week, 47 Republican senators signed a letter warning the Iranian government that many of them would remain in office long after President Barack Obamas second term was over, meaning any deal reached between the U.S. and Iran could be easily reversed by the next president.

But even among Republicans whose offices have signed the letter, there is some trepidation that the Iran letter injects partisanship into the Iran negotiations, shifting the narrative from the content of the deal to whether Republicans are unfairly trying to undercut the president.

Before the letter, the national conversation was about Netanyahus speech and how Obamas negotiations with Iran are leading to a terrible deal that could ultimately harm U.S. national security. Now, the Obama administration and its Capitol Hill partisans are cynically trying to push the conversation away from policy, and towards a deeply political pie fight over presidential and congressional prerogatives, said a Senate Republican aide whose boss signed the letter.

However, while some on the Republican side are now rethinking the wisdom of sending a letter, none of the 47 Republican signatories are recanting their support for it or signaling an intent to do so.

Republican Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, did not sign the letter.

I didnt think it was going to further our efforts to get to a place where Congress would play the appropriate role that it should on Iran, Corker told The Daily Beast. I did not think that the letter was something that was going to help get us to an outcome that were all seeking, and that is Congress playing that appropriate role.

The open letter, organized by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton, was first sent around by Senate staffers in early March. Last Wednesday, with a handful of senators already committed to the letter, Cotton brought up the issue in one of the Senate GOPs regular weekly luncheons.



I didnt think it was going to further our efforts to get to a place where Congress would play the appropriate role that it should on Iran, Sen. Bob Corker said.


I immediately knew that it was not something that, for me anyway, in my particular role, was going to be constructive, Corker said. I didnt realize until this weekend that it had the kind of momentum that it had.

Sen. Jeff Flake was another Republican who declined to sign the letter, telling reporters Tuesday that there was already a lot of animosity between Congress and the White House, and that the Iranian nuclear threat was too important to divide us among partisan lines.

I just didnt feel that it was appropriate or productive at this point. These are tough enough negotiations as it stands, and introducing this kind of letter, I didnt think would be helpful, Flake said.

Republican aides were taken aback by what they thought was a lighthearted attempt to signal to Iran and the public that Congress should have a role in the ongoing nuclear discussions. Two GOP aides separately described their letter as a cheeky reminder of the congressional branchs 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.

Added a Republican national security aide, The Senate should have a role. It would make any agreement have some sort of consistency and perpetuity beyond the president. And it would also be buy-in for the American people. Right now its just an agreement between the President of the United States and whoever the final signatory to the agreement is.

Supporters of the White Houses ongoing negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program pushed back hard against the letter, with some even citing alaw written in the 18th century(and not applied since 1803) to say that the senators engaged in illegal conduct by communicating with a foreign government to undermine the U.S. governments foreign policy.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said he was appalled and saddened by the open letter.

What it sends is a message to the rest of the world that we are not united, Nelson said.

This article was written byTim Mak forThe Daily Beast on Mar. 11, 2015. Tim Mak is the Senior Congressional Correspondent for The Daily Beast. He covers Congress, politics and national security.He previously reported on politics and defense at Politico and the Washington Examiner.


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