The repercussions of the Iran letter
The coverage of the letter sent by 47 Republicans to the leaders of Iran has been uniformly negative, everything from “it’s treason” to “this means the Democrats won’t support the GOP in overriding a sanctions veto by Obama.”
Forget the seriousness of the Republican motivation, the fact that this involves a life-and-death issue of extremely major proportions. This isn’t just Keystone, or even Obamacare. This is stark survival, not only for Israel but arguably for the people of the Western world and their Enlightenment values.
Forget, also, that the letter isn’t the least bit “unprecedented”. How many people will learn that, in the face of the fusillade of accusations to the contrary?
And the idea that Democrats who would otherwise have voted to override Obama’s sanctions veto would now vote to support it because of this letter seems absurd to me. For one thing, the Democrats have shown no ability to stand up to Obama in anything like the requisite numbers before, so why would they have done so even without the letter? Especially with the threat of prosecution a la Menendez hanging over their heads? Did they ever show that sort of courage? And if certain Democrats were able to somehow muster up that courage in the first place, why would something as relatively minor as this letter cause them to waver?
Still another argument—that Obama can now blame any failure of the Iran talks on the Republicans and their letter—also seems absurd to me. Does anyone think he wouldn’t have done so if the talks had failed without the letter? No, of course not. It would have been the Republicans and Netanyahu to blame then (with the MSM backing him up), and it will be the Republicans and Netanyahu to blame now. Now and forevermore.
A friend of a friend linked something negative about this on Facebook, and my friend posted a couple of links demonstrating prior congressional interference in foreign affairs. I ended up stepping in, pointing out that the letter is nothing but a Constitutional primer, and thus is hardly the “sabotage” that the original link claimed.
My friend hasn’t posted anything further, but his friend has gone back and forth with me a couple of times. And though he’s even gone so far as to link Al Jazeera(!) in claiming that Iran isn’t actually seeking nukes, he keeps side-stepping my original point – i.e. that the letter isn’t any great threat to the Republic.
I think that it takes all of about ten seconds for anyone who cares to pay attention to realize that this is a bunch of mass hysteria over nothing at all. But the left is too heavily invested in it to admit that. And those who are pushing the issue will try every distraction that they can think of to get people to ignore that point.
junior: I agree. And, in the end, had it not been this issue, it would have been something else — something that came up accidentally, or even something trumped-up out of nothing.
If they’re going to do it to you anyway, it might as well be on your terms. I do hope that the Republicans muster the courage to keep on swinging. (Some of them — Cruz, Rubio, Gowdy, and Cotton come to mind — seem quite willing to fight the good fight even with their own party lined up against them. That’s all to the good — with luck, they’ll provide a banner to rally behind. Americans tend to prefer a fighter, even a wrongheaded one, to a quitter.)
The 47 ronin have whipped out their katana …
the open letter being mightier than the gas bag.
{ Some might call it a white paper, but that would be racist.}
&&&&&&&
In any event, the mullahs are practitioners of kabuki…
So their script is clear.
&&&&&
BTW, does Valerie girl know any of this?
When a girl has been born and raised under autarchy – this must be big news. (Tehran and Chicago)
There is simply no doubt that Obama would blame any failure of the Iran talks on the Republicans and Netanyahu, with or without the letter.
That said, the letter does with the collusion of the MSM, give Obama a more plausible excuse (to MSM-fed-LIVs, the dems most critical demographic) should the talks fail (they won’t) and the letter and Netanyahu’s speech will be used by Obama as the excusing rationale for why he didn’t get ‘as good a deal’ as he ‘surely’ would have otherwise. ‘He was hamstrung, I tell ya!’
Obama has to have known from the start that there would be political blowback when the details of the ‘agreement’ are finally signed and released. He has to have a basic plan in place to deflect that criticism. Plus, he’ll sign it and the democrats will block any corrective legislation that Congress might try to pass. Obama will count on ‘spin’ and the LIVs limited attention span, ensured by an MSM blackout on criticism.
Not fearing impeachment, he knows nothing can be done about it and he’ll have accomplished both his short term and long term goals in this matter; given the Iranians the time needed to achieve nuclear weapons capability and placed America in a greatly weakened, defensive position.
All based in a world view that he shares with George Soros who summed it up with, “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States. For my agenda to advance, I need to have America come down in a controlled descent, not a complete crash.”
Daniel in Brookline,
“I do hope that the Republicans muster the courage to keep on swinging. Americans tend to prefer a fighter, even a wrongheaded one, to a quitter.”
America once preferred fighters to quitters but both Boenher and McConnell are confirmed quitters, who just won reaffirmation… again. So holding your breath in anticipation, might prove hazardous to your health.
Look at the bright side… If Obama hands the Iranians a path to the bomb on a silver platter, maybe they will use it on D.C. instead of Tel Aviv.
“Look at the bright side… If Obama hands the Iranians a path to the bomb on a silver platter, maybe they will use it on D.C. instead of Tel Aviv.”
Hopefully they’ll use it while Obama’s still alive to see just how badly he f&*@ed up.
been years and years of absurd arguments from these people. Nothing new. Heck; I blame Bush!
Were I to presume to send a a letter to the facists in Tehran it would begin with the words fé·â‚¬k off and die. Nuke qom, mecca, and medina asap before its too late. Let great satan be unleashed.
The Israelis might help Obama and his Iranian buddies win this one. With the help of team Obama Netanyahu is apparently slumping in the polls and could be replaced.
The original Mr. X wrote:” Hopefully they’ll use it (a nuke in DC) while Obama’s still alive to see just how badly he f&*@ed up.”
I doubt that Obama would care or be upset with a nuke going off in a country he clearly hates. If he did he would just blame on someone else.
I never thought something like this; the US converting into a dictatorship was possible, at least not within a period of two presidential terms.
Hammadinerjacket being beaten up by Mooslimes in Turkey:
video
Ah!
Democrats in office have committed treason — yes, REAL treason — MANY times over decades, colluding with real-live Communists at home and abroad. The loathsome Ted Kennedy scuttling to Moscow in the Reagan era crawls to mind: he was colluding with the Soviets to try to undermine America. Proved when the KGB archives were opened after the USSR collapsed. And that rat bastard is buried in Arlington Cemetery — Arlington!
The current secretary of state, John Kerry, is also a known, actual traitor: when he was still a Naval officer, he slithered to Paris to try to make underhanded deals with the Vietnamese Communists.
There are myriads more instances. But None Dare Call It Treason.
(Erick Erickson mopped up the floor today with a Manhattan Leftist, “Mark,” who called to say the Republicans were “traitors” for sending an open letter to Tehran explaining how our Constitution is supposed to work: Erickson had both barrels loaded with Democrats’ actual treasonous acts.)
Beverly at 9:32 . . .
I agree with you that many Democrats, such as the ones you name, and many others have committed treason.It’s been especially obvious since 9/11 when I started paying attention.
It’s also quite obvious that many of those traitors as well as the traitorous news media simply do not know what the Constitution requires regarding the three branches of government.
We are “governed” by ignorant, criminal, crazy people who haven’t the learning or imagination to understand what kinds of horrors a civilization collapse would bring. Iranians with nukes? Ho hum. What’s on TV?
If Obama wants to deny Hillary the nomination, he has the ability to do so. Just have the new Attorney General start an investigation into the email scandal. Such an investigation would take six months or better and would leak like a sieve. If that didn’t keep her out of the race, then an indictment would.
Pattern:
The 2008 secret agreement for favorable terms in post-Bush nuclear negotiations reported by Hinderaker at Powerlineblog.
The low support for the Green Revolution in 2009 in contrast with even the ‘lead from behind’ approach for the Arab Spring.
Stand-off orientation with Iraq from the outset at a critical stage of Iraq’s development, with the 2011 pull-out as the culmination, that has benefited Iran.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/19/irans-shiite-militias-are-running-amok-in-iraq/
The actual nuclear negotiations that have favored Iran.
Fool or knave? Knave.
Promethea: “We are “governed” by ignorant, criminal, crazy people who haven’t the learning or imagination to understand what kinds of horrors a civilization collapse would bring.”
They’re not ignorant, and they have the learning and imagination. Rather, the activist game is the only social political game there is.
Al Jazeera(!)?
Its not trust worthy news channel man
I never thought something like this; the US converting into a dictatorship was possible, at least not within a period of two presidential terms.
It’s not surprising that the neophyte to a chess game can’t see more than 4 moves ahead from beginning to End.
There are certain things in this world that Americans weren’t trained to do, or to win. It’s an individual aptitude and choice to receive the source. It wasn’t passed on in the American blood stream, it wasn’t passed on via citizenship papers and inheritances, and it certainly wasn’t passed on via “awards” and “degrees” from universities for doctors and lawyers.
Its not trust worthy news channel man
It’s almost like the assumption is that there does exist a trustworthy news channel…
Erick Ericksson’s caller Mark trotted out the “I can’t believe….” thing half a dozen times. Only lib/progs use this. I never figured out what it’s supposed to do in argumentation.
It doesn’t sound as if it’s a learned technique. It sounds as if they think it has real meaning.
Democrats are the Party of the Big Lie.
The consequences ought to be simple. Let them Die by the Big Lie.
Call them what they are, the Slave Party. Over and over and over again.
Richard Aubrey:
I’m not sure of the context, not having listened to the exchange in question. But I’ve heard “I just can’t believe” used as the intro to many an emotional argument, i.e. the facts may totally support what you say, and totally negate what I say, but never mind that, because I Just Can’t Believe It!
(To people used to arguing from emotions, not facts or logic, this is indeed an accepted technique. It is also common in houses where teenagers reside.)
You might mean something else, which I’ve also encountered from some lazy thinkers (mostly on the liberal side), which is the attempt to reject you, everything you stand for, and everything you might say now or in the future, based on a single data point. “But Republicans say XXXX, which is not only wrong but ridiculously wrong; based on that, why should I listen to anything you have to say?”
I actually have a lot of fun with that argument… because it’s usually not based on anything I’VE said or done. I point that out, and cheerfully add that, since their entire premise was based on the one thing that I just rejected, nothing remains of their argument — nothing at all. (I also point out that it’s hardly reasonable to reject a person for the actions of others in a group.) Nice try, big guy. Now start again from scratch. Better luck next time.
And yet people continue using this technique, because they LIKE being able to reject someone utterly and never think about them again. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose…