The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. Last week we had 47 United States Republican senators—subsequently referred to as the
47 traitors—unconstitutionally inject themselves into our nation’s foreign policy. They signed on to an
infantile letter written by Tom Cotton, the junior senator from Arkansas, to the mullahs in Iran, with the supposed purpose of teaching them the intricacies of the United States Constitution.
It is understood that sometimes otherwise intelligent politicians say silly things for the purpose of getting elected, but affecting policy or actions on silly things can be disastrous. It can be disastrous specifically when politicians start to believe their rhetoric.
The Iranians summarily dismissed the letter. Dr. Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, responded:
Zarif expressed astonishment that some members of US Congress find it appropriate to write to leaders of another country against their own President and administration. He pointed out that from reading the open letter, it seems that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.
Follow below the fold for more.
Embarrassingly, in signing the letter these senators showed they were the ones who did not quite understand the Constitution or their own jurisdiction regarding any results attained by the negotiations. The Iranians subsequently schooled the Republicans on the error of their interpretation of the Constitution. Sadly, the letter will be used as a diminished faith bargaining chip to extract more from the U.S. based on the bad faith of these senators.
Americans must not be fooled. The expectation of the 47 senators is to do the job of their masters. A deal with Iran is an existential threat to the profits of the military industrial complex. Many of these senators in the past attempted to use ISIS / ISIL to force America into another war to prop up the military industrial complex. ISIS / ISIL, that big bad monster that was more hype than substance is in retreat. No matter how much the warmongers attempt to make it an existential threat to the U.S., it never was.
Americans must come to the realization that it is all about cause and effect. It is always about war for oil. It is always about conflict for oil. We either have war or we have oil. Either way, there are profits to be made.
Our real conflict with Iran occurred because we overthrew their democratically elected leader. The oil company, now known as British Petroleum, lost its stronghold on Iranian oil. The British and the Americans would not have that. They inserted a dictator, the Shah of Iran, until the Iranian people rose up and innocent Americans were caught in between. Americans must know the history before we blindly decide that war with Iran is morally right. The Iranians have more to fear from us than we from them.
One should note that America is playing the same game in Venezuela. Venezuela is sitting on top of one of the largest reserves of oil, if not the largest in the world. Yet most in the country are poor. The only folks who got rich off of the oil was the Venezuelan plutocracy and foreign companies. They willed Hugo Chavez into existence and now they're willing Nicolas Maduro to effect some sort of Bolivarian revolution in an attempt to bring some sort of redistribution to what was stolen. America does not approve.
Recently, President Obama has declared that Venezuela poses an "extraordinary threat to the national security" of the United States. Do you get the picture? If a country is declared a threat to our national security, is that not a precursor to war?
President Obama should know better. He's absolutely wrong, and with this recent statement is behaving no differently than President Bush on Iraq. U.S.-Venezuelan action is flying under the radar, but those words give the United States executive the legal permission to act to remove the "threat to our national security."
The Republicans will undercut the president in Iran. Any bets on whether they will support President Obama on his very large misstep on Venezuela?