Category Archives: foreign policy

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.

55,000 Emails

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…on the wall, 55,000 emails.

Take one down, and read it out loud….

(Sorry)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that, with those 55,000 emails, she’s released all the relevant ones.

Couple things about that. 55,000 emails over a four year tour of duty works out to less than 40 emails per day. Split that in half (naively), and say 20 were from Clinton—or sent for her over her signature block—and 20 were to her. We’re supposed to believe that the Secretary of State of the United States only did 20 emailed conversations per day? Really? My wife, who works for a large-ish networking company, gets over 100 per day. Inbound.

The second thing is this: whose definition of “relevant?” These emails’ relevance were determined by Hillary “What difference, at this point, does it make” Clinton.

Hmm….

Another Installment in Sea Grabs

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The People’s Republic of China Foreign Minister Wang Yi had this to say, according to The Wall Street Journal:

This construction does not target or affect anyone.

We are not like some countries who engage in illegal construction in another person’s house, and we do not accept criticism from others when we are merely building facilities in our own yard. We have every right to do things that are lawful and justified.

The satellite imagery at the WSJ link is remarkable.

Of course, Wang is lying. What the PRC is doing affects all the nations on the South China Sea rim: being international waters, the Sea is theirs as much as it is the PRC’s, which is to say it’s owned by no one.

As far as construction in another person’s house is concerned, the Spratly Islands (the site of the present construction), if not in anyone’s house, most assuredly are in the jointly held front yards of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. These islands are nowhere near the PRC, and like the South China Sea in general, they are not at all PRC territory.

National Security and Terrorists

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More than a dozen Islamic State fighters from Iraq and Syria—some with direct ties to the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—are now in Libya, according to US and European sources.

And the US has no authority to take them out.

And

The nation’s most senior intelligence officer, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Libya is not only a safe haven for ISIS but at least six other terror groups, including Ansar al-Sharia, which paraded police vehicles through Benghazi last month.

State’s Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf repeated State’s (and so President Barack Obama’s) position on the matter, insisting that this is not the fault of our foreign policy.

Are we happy with the situation in Libya from a governance and security perspective? No. Absolutely not. At the end of the day, though, this is not just a line, it’s true. This is ultimately up to the Libyan people, leaders in Libya to take the security of their country into their own hands and try to move it in a better direction with our help, the UN and others’ help as well.

This is a misreading of the situation. These Daesh members (and with direct ties to…Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, they’re Daesh leaders themselves) also are threats to our own national security, as are those other terrorist groups present—and not only to us, but to our friends and allies, also. From that, two consequences result directly.

The first is that, most assuredly, the situation in Libya is Libya’s to answer first, and we should do all we can to help Libya in that regard if they ask.

The second consequence, and from our national safety perspective the more important one, is that if Libya is unable or unwilling to handle the situation to our satisfaction—that is to the satisfaction of our own national security interest—then we have an obligation to ourselves, to American security, to enter and to handle the situation ourselves.

A foreign policy that is in the way of that, whether actively so or passively, very definitely is at fault, and it’s at odds with our national security.