There is a lot of hoopla going on right now about the potential nuclear agreement deal that President Barack Obama has negotiated with Iran via Secretary of State John Kerry. Congressional Republicans are pretending to be concerned about the details of the agreement and the need to review them before they can decide whether or not to endorse it.
What a joke. It is obvious that they have already made up their minds. Have these Republicans no shame? Flashback; Republicans tried to torpedo the negotiations before they were even completed! Remember House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress without notifying congressional Democrats or the White House? Remember the open letter that was sent to the Iranian leaders – which was signed by 47 Senators including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an effort to undermine President Obama’s efforts to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran?
How can Republicans now pretend with a straight face that they want to review the details of the deal with Iran to determine whether or not they can support it? They can’t! Based on what they did, with the support of House Speaker Boehner, in bypassing congressional Democrats and the White House in inviting Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of congress and what they did, with the support of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in sending an open letter to Iranian leaders in an effort to undermine their own President, any effort at pretention has already been unmasked and, therefore, rendered ineffective.
To add insult to injury, both Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have traveled to Israel and stood beside Prime Minister Netanyahu and in essence stood with him in denouncing President Obama’s foreign policy initiatives. According to Israel’s Arutz Sheva, Senator McConnell told Prime Minister Netanyahu that “We’re by Israel’s side.” There is nothing wrong with this statement except that, under the circumstances, it implies that Senator McConnell and those that he is speaking for are by Israel’s side and against President Obama.
Democrats are not totally without blame. There are some of them that must be held to account as well. They can claim that they are simply representing their constituents but the majority of the American people do not want another war. Though many politicians may be without a heart they are not without a brain. We did not elect our politicians to function just as robots, instead, we expect them to use all of the information available to them – some of which we may not be privy to – to make their decisions.
It is not hard to understand Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position because, not only is he the Prime Minister of Israel but he is also a politician. Without a doubt he is working to gain support for his position of the majority of Israeli citizens. What is hard to understand is why Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – who obviously are Americans, would look to Prime Minister Netanyahu as if he were their leader and openly support him instead of their own President? At the very least they could support the Prime Minister without purposely seeking out a way to embarrass the President of the United States of America!
There is no excuse for what Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader McConnell have done. There are those who advocate for Speaker Boehner and say that despite what he has done he still believes that there is only one person who sets foreign policy for the United States of America. If that is true, he must believe that that one person is himself. If Speaker Boehner wants to be that person then he should run for President of the United States of America. With a record like his as Speaker of the House, I am sure that there are an untold number of Americans who would like to see him as President. After all, he has proven to be such a strong and forceful leader in his position as Speaker of the House when compared to all of those who have gone before him.
My point is that when we look at the things that Republican led legislatures are doing in places like Indiana and Arkansas and consider the things that they have done with respect to their support to gut the Voting Rights Act, their efforts to make voting harder for eligible voters rather than easier and their lack of effort to make their Party inclusive rather than exclusive, it should give us pause. The leadership of the Republican Party is so focused on bringing down President Obama that they have forgotten about everything else.
Congressional Republicans are so focused on depriving President Obama of a meaningful legacy that they literally cannot see anything beyond that. Even if the deal with Iran is an unprecedented deal, which future administrations would find to be a daunting task to even aspire to, Republicans are so blinded that they will be unable to comprehend its relevance and place in history.
Republicans will either have to stop pretending to be interested in the details of the potential nuclear deal with Iran and consider it on its true merit or continue to pretend that they are interested and never really comprehend its true potential value. I suggest that they stop playing politics and consider its true merit because the only other realistic alternative would be war.
I think that too often those who are rich and powerful are too quick and too eager to go to war. In most cases, it is not their children who are sent off to foreign lands to fight and die for America’s way of life simply by virtue of the fact that they are rich and powerful and can shield their loved ones from this cruel and heartbreaking consequence. Diplomacy should and must be given a chance for the sake of those who are not rich and powerful.
None of us who have never been there can even begin to imagine what war is truly like; alone in some foreign land: cold and lonely in the darkness in some jungle or in some village not knowing who is friend and who is foe. So to the rich and powerful who decide on war and peace I say, just imagine if it were your child who was being sent off to fight and possible die in a foreign land. Would you still be so quick to shun peace and espouse war? Think about it… Really think about it.
Eulus Dennis