Kerry: Iran talks “will not be rushed”
Deadlines come, and deadlines go…
As time goes on, and the Iran nuclear negotiations continue, it’s hard to escape the thought that the Obama administration is becoming more and more desperate for a deal. Any deal.
Here are recent developments:
John Kerry, in his usual clear-as-mud manner, says that “We will not rush and we will not be rushed.” On the other hand, negotiations “will not be open-ended.” What does that tell us about how close the parties are to an agreement? Nothing.
He also said the agreement needs to “withstand the test of time,” and that “It’s a test for decades.”
In other words, the consequences of the deal will begin flowing immediately, which will make it difficult to undo or to reverse. That last idea was underlined by the fact that “the White House believes that even if Congress votes against allowing the president to implement the deal, it will have support from enough lawmakers that the critics won’t be able to override a presidential veto.”
Why might they be confident that there will be no override? Perhaps because the administration also believes that an earlier message to Congress has been assimilated, one that goes something like this: Democrats, note what we did to your fellow esteemed member of Congress Bob Menendez when he led the fight against us on Iran. Now, you wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to you, would you?
And if you’re inclined to excoriate the Republicans in Congress for agreeing to the Corker-Menendez bill requiring Congressional approval for a negotiated deal, and you think that it actually decreased their power over what Obama and Kerry do regarding Iran, I disagree. As I wrote in a previous post on the matter:
Lots of conservatives think it’s a bad deal because without it, a 2/3 vote would be needed to approve the deal as a treaty, and with it, a 2/3 vote (because of the necessity for a veto override) will be needed to block it. But they are ignoring reality, which is that without it there is not chance it would even come up before Congress at all, because Obama would consider it not to be a treaty, and he could win that argument.
Would Obama ever have agreed to regard the deal as a treaty and subject it to Senate approval? Although it is arguably a treaty, it is not technically and unequivocally a treaty, and they could not force him to act as though it is. Obama would have claimed that it is an executive agreement rather than a treaty. The fact that other previous presidents might certainly have regarded it as a treaty out of deference to Congress and public opinion does not change the fact that Obama could not care less about these things when he has a goal as important to him as conceding to Iran appears to be.
[NOTE: See more on Iran here from Michael Totten.]
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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Comments
It seems that deadlines are about as meaningful as red lines.
To interpret: I don’t care how long it takes….I want a Nobel Peace Prize, dammit!
He already got one…after 23 days in office…
Well, thanks for straightening me out. I had no idea John Kerry already had a Nobel Peace Prize.
he needs that Nobel Peace Prize for his Legacy more than we need a non-nuclear Terror State or Israel needs living. His hubris and self acclamation knows no bounds. We should call him John Commodus Kerry
…or just commode.
Here I thought they were shooting for “Quds Day”
That was yesterday, and they obviously missed.
Or did you perhaps mean next years Al Quds Day?
The fact that other previous presidents might certainly have regarded it as a treaty out of deference to Congress and public opinion does not change the fact that Obama could not care less about these things
No, they didn’t do it out of deference, they did it because it’s a Constitutional requirement.
The entirety of the Constitution assumes some basic principles. They’re not all spelled out explicitly, but the document’s structure makes it obvious that these principles were assumed, like all those other things which were considered to be “self-evident”—and they’re certainly more obvious than any “emanations of penumbras”.
One of those principles is that no one man can commit the entire country to major expenses or obligations. No one man can spend a dime of Federal money, declare war, or ratify a treaty. Ever.
Likewise, the Constitution contains no provision for suspension of the Legislature and its replacement as the maker of both laws and policies by a single man, even in cases of “emergency”. (The meticulously crafted Weimar constitution had such a provision, and we all know how well that worked out.)
This is probably the most blatantly dictatorial attempt Obama has made so far in his entire wretched career. It is not just more of the Socialist/Liberal/Progressive Axis being power-mad jerks; it’s a genuine disaster for the American experiment.
Provided, of course, that Congress lets him get away with it.
Willful ignorance. What can Congress do to force a President to treat an agreement as a treaty rather than an executive agreement?
1. Confront him with veto-proof legislation. That means 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate. The most we could get with that is what Corker got. To think otherwise is just fantasy. Name the Democrats who would have gone along with something stronger.
2. Impeachment. Needs 67 votes in the Senate to remove, and they aren’t there. So it is no threat. And the threat is what is needed, because it would take longer than executing the deal.
– –
BESIDES, the main players here are the other Security Council members and Germany, since it is their sanctions that matter. Our own do little: we do no direct business with Iran ourselves and haven’t since 1979.
We could sanction foreign companies that do business here for violating sanctions, but that creates its own problems, and those firms would likely find cut-outs or other ways around it. Our sanctions mean nothing at all to companies that do not do business here. If the UN sanctions come off, game over.
– –
Just because you dislike reality doesn’t mean it isn’t the reality.
Very few conservative pundits realize – or admit – that there is no practical way to force Obama to submit any Iran deal as a treaty. They accuse Corker of “betrayal” for finding the ONLY way Congress could force ANY say on the deal at all, by getting veto-proof consensus with enough Democrats on board.
So, congratulations. Prepare yourself for abuse, although with a handle like “neo-neocon,” I imagine you have been accused of RINOism already.
= =
Some facts for those who may have missed them:
● over the last 30 years, 90% of our international agreements have taken the form of executive agreements without ratification; only 10% have been submitted to the Senate as treaties.
● Obama has made fewer executive agreements than any President since Reagan. Who complained about them under Bush, Clinton, or Bush?
● TPA (and TPP, when it is finalized) had to be submitted as legislation, not a treaty, as with other trade deals, because it affects our tariffs. The Senate alone ratifies treaties, but questions of revenue are the House’s prerogative.
If only Americans had nuclear weapons, then Obamacare would not have been rushed. The more you know.
I wonder why Iran deserves a warning from this administration. It’s out of character for Obama. And since when have procedures constrained progressive liberals? Neither democracy nor law nor science nor morality have delayed Democrat actions.
” As time goes on, and the Iran nuclear negotiations continue, it’s hard to escape the thought that the Obama administration is becoming more and more desperate for a deal. Any deal. ”
Could it be that he sees Iran as his proxy to take out Israel?
Time is getting short and he wants to keep his promises to Rashid Khalidi and other friends.
Obama: “We want legacy, by any means necessary”.
John Kerry’s placidity is so…enriching!
Sort of sad watching Kerry and Obama petting a dead cat.
tom swift:
If you follow the link on “Obama would have claimed” in the last paragraph, you’ll come to an article at Townhall that describes some legal precedents (including SCOTUS cases Dames & Moore v. Regan or American Insurance Ass’n v. Garamendi) on which Obama would have relied for making the claim that the Iran deal is not a treaty. Would he have won? It is hard to predict, but with the way SCOTUS has been going there’s an excellent chance he would have won.
As for impeachment and the possibilities for that, many Democratic votes would be needed to convict Obama in the Senate. There doesn’t seem to be anything like that sort of support for it, so although of course impeachment would be a way to stop him, it is just a theoretical way, unfortunately, because there are nowhere near the requisite number of votes for removal.
I think Obama and Kerry will give up by the end of July – or maybe if some agreement is reached, Ayatollah Khamenei will promptly pull the rug out from under the agreement.
And he will bomb Iran before the middle of August.
I mean if Iran is just two or three months away from a bomb..
“As time goes on, and the Iran nuclear negotiations continue, it’s hard to escape the thought that the Obama administration is becoming more and more desperate for a deal. Any deal.”
Actually, given the fact that the Iranians obviously won’t agree to anything substantive, Obama’s choices are: a) agree to a “let Iran have everything it wants” deal and be excoriated, b) declare defeat and admit there will be no deal and be excoriated, or c) keep up appearances by going through the motions of “still working on a deal, we won’t be rushed because it’s just that important to get it right” forever until the MSM loses all interest or Obama’s term is up and it becomes someone else’s problem, whichever comes first.
Kerry’s remarks show that what Obama is really “desperate” to do at this point is option (c).
[sarcasm]
How long is it going take to take for self-confessed war criminal Hanoi John Kerry to realize that he can get a deal anytime just by agreeing that we have no objection to them building a nice nuclear weapon and using it on Israel.
That seems to be the administrations intent, so why not just get it over with already? Oh, and supplying Ali Khamenei with a few six year old girls as recompense for our previous intractability would be a nice touch.
[/sarcasm]