47 Republican senators have sent an open letter to the leaders of Iran about the ongoing negotiations over nuclear power, serving as a provider of “knowledge of our constitutional system” and what power President Obama has in agreeing to it.
The sole purpose of this open letter [PDF] is to help explain how the American government works to Iran. For example:
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…
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.
During today’s White House press briefing, Josh Earnest responded:
Josh Earnest says GOP Iran letter is the "continuation of a partisan strategy” to undermine Obama’s ability to negotiate foreign policy
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) March 9, 2015
.@WhiteHouse spox Josh Earnest said letter to discourage Iran's leaders was not the role US founding fathers envisaged for Congress
— Maysam Bizær (@m_bizar) March 9, 2015
And according to an Iranian news agency, Iran’s foreign minister has already responded by denouncing the letter as a publicity ploy.
[h/t Bloomberg]
[Image via Shutterstock.com]
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