Category Archives: defense policy

Nuclear Disarmament

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Keith Payne, Director of the Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University (oh yeah, also a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense), had some thoughts on this in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week.

Read the whole thing; I just want to focus on one small remark.

Realists point out that foreign leaders base their decisions about nuclear weaponry largely on their perceived strategic needs, not in response to US disarmament.

He’s on the right track here, but I disagree with him to an extent. Foreign leaders—especially our enemies’ leaders—also base their decisions about nuclear weaponry on the perceived value of those weapons. That value goes up as we disarm and render ourselves less and less capable of answering their nuclear blackmail or outright attack.

We haven’t been attacked with nuclear weapons, ever in our history? Since the early 1950s (I discount the interval between the Manhattan Project and that period for its lack of numbers of nuclear weapons and effective delivery means), the US has had the nuclear weapons with which to respond, not merely in kind, but devastatingly and decisively. In that environment, only one other nation in the world—the USSR—thought extensive nuclear weapons worth the price. The PRC didn’t start getting serious about its own nuclear force development and expansion until after we’d already severely cut our own forces and development capability.

With a nuclear armed Russia “preparing to bring its nuclear weapons into play” over Crimea, a nuclear armed People’s Republic of China seizing the East and South China Seas as their private lakes, and a soon-to-be nuclear armed Iran sworn to destroy Israel and with a long history of arming terrorists, disarming today is utopian folly. Full stop.

Where’s the Fatwa?

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The guy who sits in the Secretary of State’s chair, John Kerry, said [emphasis added],

Now I want to be very clear. Nothing in our deliberations is decided until everything is decided. And the purpose of these negotiations is not just to get any deal; it is to get the right deal. President Obama means it when he says, again and again, that Iran will not be permitted to get a nuclear weapon. As you all know, Iran says it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, and that is a very welcome statement that the Supreme Leader has, in fact, incorporated into a fatwa. And we have great respect—great respect—for the religious importance of a fatwa. And what we are effectively trying to do is translate that into legal language, into everyday language within the framework of a negotiated agreement that everybody can understand, which requires everybody to have certain obligations and ultimately be able to guarantee that Iran’s program, its nuclear program, will be peaceful now and peaceful forever.

But [emphasis and links in the original]:

The Obama administration…exhibits cloying reverence for a fatwa—a sharia law edict—issued by a jurist who runs a regime that is the world’s leading state sponsor of jihadist terror.

Even when the fatwa is a patent hoax.

The invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has done extensive research into compilations of Khamenei’s published fatwas. (See here and here, and citations therein.) No such fatwa has ever been published.

And

[D]espite repeated requests, Iran has never produced the purported anti-nuclear weapons fatwa from Khamenei.

And (via the PJ Media above)

Indeed, as MEMRI elaborates, Khamenei was directly asked about the purported fatwa in a 2012 Facebook exchange:

[I]s it also forbidden to obtain nuclear weapons, as per your ruling that their use is prohibited?

He refused to answer the question:

Your question has no jurisprudential aspect. When it has a jurisprudent [sic] position, then it will be possible to answer it.

Motorboat skippers and community organizers are so easily bamboozled.

Sit Down, and Shut Up

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That’s President Barack Obama to Congress on his “negotiations” with Iran concerning the latter’s nuclear weapons program.

President Obama’s chief of staff Dennis McDonough told Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker in a letter that legislation sponsored by Corker would go beyond ensuring a role for Congress in a deal with Iran.

“Instead, the legislation would potentially prevent any deal from succeeding by suggesting that Congress must vote to ‘approve’ any deal,” McDonough said. He criticized a provision that would eliminate Obama’s authority to lift some sanctions on Iran as part of any agreement.

Never mind that that’s the point of Congressional oversight, and of the separate Constitutional obligation of the Senate to agree (by supermajority, mind you) to a treaty—that whole by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate bit.

That’s why Obama is working on his finally admitted-to Executive Agreement: that does not require Senate approval (and as a result, it’s wholly unbinding on anything or anyone). It can have no effect on the Iranian drive to obtain nuclear weapons.

Never mind, too, that the legislation under consideration would strengthen Obama’s hand in those negotiations. A strengthening he apparently does not want.

So: sit down, and shut up, Republican Congress. Your Betters are speaking.

Joe Biden Demurs

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…from the 47 Republican Senators’ letter to the Iranian government.

The decision to undercut our President and circumvent our constitutional system offends me as a matter of principle.

Here’s another take on the Vice President’s take:

The decision to undercut our Congress and circumvent our constitutional system offends me as a matter of principle.

Oh, wait—that’s different.

Biden is badly wrong on the Constitutional authorities of the President to conclude treaties and on the durability of President-agreed deals. You’d think he’d be embarrassed by his grade school error, but….

Update: Secretary of State John Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday that President Barack Obama never has been negotiating a treaty. He’s been negotiating a non-binding Executive Agreement, and that’s why it’s none of Congress’ business.

So: if it’s non-binding, why would Iran stick with it?

An Open Letter

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Senator Tom Cotton (R, AR) is the lead signatory, among 47 Republican Senators, to an open letter to the Iranian government regarding how the American government works.

An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran:

It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system. Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution-the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices-which you should seriously consider as negotiations progress.

First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate). Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.

Second, 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. As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then-perhaps decades.

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.

We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress.

Unfortunately, the letter isn’t only addressed to the Iranians, it’s also, of necessity, aimed at President Barack Obama.

The letter can be seen here and here.