Yes, Republicans were never going to support any international agreement negotiated by President Obama. But beyond mindless Obama opposition, it is important when weighing competing claims as to the wisdom of the Iranian nuclear deal to understand that conservative Republicans have a long ideological opposition to any diplomatic efforts and agreements with rival nations - and more specifically that they reject out-of-hand the notion of compromise itself. In other words, the specifics of the proposed Iranian deal are irrelevant because Republicans object to the underlying premise of diplomacy and compromise itself. Properly understood, no deal with Iran could ever be acceptable
The history behind this is interesting. As Jonathan Chait helpfully explains:
But the conservative case against the Iran deal is hard to take seriously because the right has made the same case against every major negotiation with an American adversary since World War II. If there is such a thing as a deal with an enemy state strong enough to satisfy conservatives, no American president, Democratic or Republican, has ever been shrewd or tough enough to strike it.
As a result,
Republicans have opposed "every nonproliferation treaty with the Soviets. The right opposed Nixon going to China. The right condemned the SALT treaty and the START treaty." Indeed, Saint Reagan himself was compared to Chamberlain and labeled as a dreaded "appeaser" for talking with Gorbachev.
This total opposition to negotiation and compromise found its voice in Conservative darling Barry Goldwater:
Goldwater’s governing assumption was that all international interaction was zero-sum – that there had to be a winner and a loser. The very concept of negotiation – in which both sides benefit in the same way trading partners benefit from exchanging goods – therefore eluded him.
And it is important to realize how categorical (and insane) this Republican opposition to diplomacy can be:
In the ultimate expression of his hatred for engagement, [then-Sen. Barry Goldwater] even opposed the eminently sensible Hot Line Agreement, which established a communications link between Moscow and Washington so that leaders could talk directly during emergencies like the Cuban missile crisis.
So, Republican opposition to Obama's proposed Iranian nuclear agreement is not dependent on the terms of the deal itself - any such deal, definitionally, is objectionable. Why is this important?
1. Well, obviously, if one political party has an openly stated, long-held ideological opposition to all diplomacy and compromise with competing powers, then that fact should be considered by everyone else outside their bubble. And, given this open history, there is no excuse for the press to pretend that it doesn't exist and enable the fake sense that we are debating particular terms and conditions about this or that.
2. By ignoring this peculiar but strongly held view, the press has allowed this "no compromise" mentality to migrate without debate or acknowledgement from a niche foreign policy view to the now dominant Republican position on domestic politics. Watch the video above. Boehner is always comical, but he is telling Leslie Stahl at 60 Minutes that Republicans - in a democracy - no longer intend to compromise with the enemy (Democrats). That is a tremendous, destructive shift that explains almost all of our recent politics of inertia, filibusters, government shutdowns, debt ceiling fights and general inability to pass anything into law.
If you don't think this is serious, watch the separate, but similar Leslie Stahl interview with former Republican leader Eric Cantor below. This video is really disturbing and revealing. Not only won't Cantor say the word "compromise," but his press secretary takes the bizarre step of interrupting an ongoing 60 Minutes interview with shouts of "No, no!" when Leslie Stahl rightly notes that Ronald Reagan believed in compromise.
Both videos show a commitment to a "no compromise" style of politics that is both unsettling and destructive. That uncompromising ideology now plays across issues as diverse as the Iranian nuclear negotiations and the Highway Trust Fund. it is about the biggest political development in recent decades. So, why pretend it is not happening?