A firestorm erupted Tuesday over the letter by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. and 46 other Senators to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, laying out their view of the ongoing negotiations regarding Iran's nuclear program. Critics of the letter started throwing around words like unprecedented, illegal, even treasonous.
A word to the worked up critics: relax.
The White House of course objects to members of Congress getting involved in foreign policy, which it sees as the president's exclusive domain. But the Cotton letter is part of the normal give and take of American politics, driven by the shared powers enshrined in the Constitution.
This is hardly unprecedented. Recall the "Dear Commandante" letter sent by Rep. Stephen J. Solarz, D-NY and nine other senior Democrats to Sandinista junta leader Daniel Ortega.The letter was a not-so-subtle critique of Reagan administration policy towards Nicaragua. At the time, Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. said the letter ''clearly violates the executive branch's exclusive prerogative of negotiating with a foreign government.'' The Obama administration could recycle Gingrich's talking points today.
Members of Congress have gone farther than simply sending letters to try to influence foreign affairs. "Fact finding missions" to countries with sensitive relationships with the United States are a Congressional staple. Then Senator Hillary Clinton went to Iraq in January 2007 — her third trip to that country since the 2003 invasion — as a means of establishing a platform for criticizing Bush policies for her upcoming run for the White House. She joined then Sen. Obama in championing Congressional action to limit the "surge" policy that they quickly declared a failure.
And don't forget then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal. defying the Bush White House and traveling to Syria in April 2007 to meet with President Bashar Assad, grandly declaring "the road to Damascus is a road to peace."
The Cotton letter is more a message to Obama than the Iranian leadership. The White House appears to be doing an end-run around the Senate's treaty confirmation power, and the letter notes that this places the agreement in future jeopardy. Perhaps Obama is trying to avoid the SALT II Treaty debacle that plagued Jimmy Carter. But a better approach would be to negotiate a deal with Iran that could attract bipartisan Senate support.
President Obama prefers to go it alone. On Monday, he said that he would make the case to the American people only after an agreement was signed – uncomfortably echoing the famous line about Obamacare that it had to be passed to find out what was in it. But remember what President-elect Obama said in November 2008 regarding the Iraq Status of Forces Agreement being negotiated by the George W. Bush administration: "It is unacceptable that the Iraqi government will present the agreement to the Iraqi parliament for approval — yet the Bush administration will not do the same with the U.S. Congress. The Bush administration must submit the agreement to Congress or allow the next administration to negotiate an agreement that has bipartisan support here at home and makes absolutely clear that the U.S. will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq."
This week's flap over the Cotton letter echoes last week's eruption over the speech by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Critics charged that the invitation to speak was unprecedented, perhaps illegal, maybe treasonous. Netanyahu spoke. Now everyone has moved on.
The Cotton letter is not the end of the world either.
