White House Faults GOP Senators' Letter to Iran's Leaders - New York Times

WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday sharply rebuked nearly four dozen Republican senators who sent a letter to Iranian leaders just as nuclear negotiations reach a pivotal moment, characterizing the correspondence as an illegitimate interference in President Obama’s foreign policy.

The letter, signed by 47 Republican senators and addressed to “leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” suggested that the Iranian leaders might not understand the American system and warned them that any deal Mr. Obama and other world leaders might reach on the future of its nuclear program would be reversible without congressional approval.

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said the senators were trying to “essentially throw sand in the gears here” in a way that went beyond the role envisioned for Congress in foreign policy by the authors of the Constitution. He said the White House wanted to send a “forceful” rebuttal to the letter because it seemed intent on torpedoing the talks.

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What the United States and Iran want out of discussions over Iran’s nuclear development.

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“Writing a letter like this that appeals to the hard-liners in Iran is frankly just the latest in a strategy, a partisan strategy, to undermine the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy and advance our national interests around the world,” Mr. Earnest said. He linked it to the decision by Speaker John A. Boehner to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel without consulting the White House to denounce a possible Iran deal in a speech to Congress last week.

The letter, drafted by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and signed by most of the Republican majority in the Senate, suggested to Iran that reaching a deal with Mr. Obama might not stick because Congress would not approve it.

“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,” said the letter, which was disclosed earlier by Bloomberg News.

Mr. Cotton said on Monday that he had drafted the letter because Iran’s leaders might not understand the American constitutional system. Unlike a treaty, which would require a two-thirds Senate vote for ratification, the agreement Mr. Obama and other world leaders are negotiating with Iran would not automatically go to Congress, but members of both parties are seeking a vote.

Mr. Cotton said the terms of the emerging deal made it too risky and noted that a Republican president succeeding Mr. Obama could decide not to honor it. Speaking on Fox News, Mr. Cotton noted that the agreement under discussion would expire after 10 years. That alone would “make this deal unacceptable, dangerous to the United States and dangerous to the world.”

Mr. Cotton said he hoped that Democratic senators might also sign the letter. “And for that matter, I’d encourage Hillary Clinton to join us in saying that Congress must approve any nuclear deal with Iran,” Mr. Cotton said.

The letter came just days after Senate Republicans abandoned an effort to push for a vote on legislation intended to force Mr. Obama to submit any eventual deal to Congress for a vote. Several Senate Democrats who support the legislation balked at voting on it before the talks wrapped up.

Democratic senators quickly criticized Mr. Cotton’s letter. Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the party’s No. 2 leader in the chamber, called the letter “a cynical effort” to undermine negotiations that would ultimately make a peaceful resolution less likely and therefore possibly lead to a military confrontation.

“These Republican senators should think twice about whether their political stunt is worth the threat of another war in the Middle East,” he said.

Iran reacted with scorn, saying the letter would have no impact on the talks and suggested that the authors were the ones who did not understand the American system of government in which the president conducts foreign policy.

“In our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy,” Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, said in a written statement. “It is very interesting that while negotiations are still in progress and while no agreement has been reached, some political pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an agreement that they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history.”

Mr. Zarif added that a change in administration would not relieve the United States of its obligations under any agreement. “I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with ‘the stroke of a pen,’ as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law,” he said.

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