Anger and outrage grew Tuesday over a letter from Senate Republicans to Iranian leaders designed to scuttle a yet-to-be-completed deal on its nuclear program.
Congressional Democrats and independents, even some who question a deal with Iran, called the letter authored by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., an unprecedented act of political sabotage aimed at President Barack Obama.
“I cannot imagine the Congress of the United States writing a letter to Khrushchev in the midst of those discussions and saying, ‘Don’t worry about this guy Kennedy, he doesn’t speak for our country,’” said Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, harkening back to the tense Cuban missile crisis showdown between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. “And yet that essentially is what took place (Monday).”
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif dismissed the letter as “mostly a propaganda ploy” designed to undermine the talks between his country, the United States and five other world powers.
Clearly annoyed by the lecturing tone of the letter, Zarif in turn lectured Cotton and his Senate colleagues.
“I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by U.S. domestic law,” Zarif said in a statement reported by Fars News Agency.
The 47 Republican signers held firm Tuesday, saying that offering their opinion of a nuclear deal in a message to Tehran’s leaders fulfilled part of their “advise and consent” role as senators.
“We have held for some time here in Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, that we ought to become more involved in foreign policy,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
Cotton’s letter gained additional support Tuesday when Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, added his signature to the letter. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry tweeted that he “would be proud and honored to sign the letter.”
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush didn’t say whether he’d sign the letter, but he blamed the administration for the situation, saying the senators “would not have been put in this position had the administration consulted regularly with them rather than ignoring their input.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker also did not say that he’d sign the letter, but said, “Unless the White House is prepared to submit the Iran deal it negotiates for congressional approval, the next president should not be bound (by) it.”
Four other potential Republican presidential candidates – Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – already signed the letter.
The support was not unanimous.
Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was one of seven Senate Republicans who refused to sign. He said Tuesday he “didn’t think it was going to further our efforts to get a place where Congress would play the appropriate role that it should in the Iran negotiations.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said, “I doubt very much whether the ayatollah would be moved by an explanation of our constitutional system,” referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Cotton was angry at Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator, who called the letter “beneath the dignity of an institution I revere” in a scathing statement late Monday evening.
Biden “has been wrong about nearly every major foreign policy and national security decision in the last 40 years,” Cotton said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “If Joe Biden so respects the dignity of the institution of the Senate, he should be insisting that the president submit any deal to (the) approval of the Senate.”
In his letter, Cotton informed Iranian leaders that “Congress plays a significant role” in ratifying agreements and that anything not approved by Congress is “nothing more than an executive agreement between President Barack Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei.”
He warned that a nuclear deal probably wouldn’t survive beyond Obama’s presidency.
The Obama administration continued to vent its anger Tuesday. White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz called the letter “reckless,” “irresponsible,” “misguided,” and “a flagrant, partisan attempt to interfere with the negotiations.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took time in her press conference defending her use of personal email during her tenure at Foggy Bottom to denounce the letter.
“Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander in chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy,” she said. “Either answer does discredit the letters’ signatories.”
A debate raged off Capitol Hill as well over the letter. The New York Daily News front page had “Traitors” in bold black letters with pictures of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Paul, Cruz and Cotton. The hashtag #47traitors was among the most talked about topics on Twitter.
“I think the term ‘traitor’ is out of bounds,” said Sen. Roberts, a former Marine.
Some academics and bloggers accused the signers of violating the Logan Act, a 1799 law that says it’s a crime for any unauthorized person to “commence or carry on any verbal or written correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government” with the intention “to influence the measures or conduct” of the foreign government.
Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense studies for the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said, “Whenever you try to exclude lawmakers the way the Obama administration has in a very determined fashion, you lose the buy-in, that’s just the reality,” she said.
“The administration has handled all parties badly, and only Iran has been given sort of the kid-glove treatment,” she said.
But Anthony Cordesman, a senior national security analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the letter was “an appalling mess.”
“One thing about sending international letters, they better be serious, they better be well-drafted, they better have a convincing intellectual content, and they better not seem just a hollow political gesture for partisan purposes,” Cordesman said. “This letter can’t meet any of those four tests.”
Anita Kumar, Lesley Clark, Renee Schoof, Michael Doyle, Lindsay Wise, Steven Thomma, Ellie Silverman, Marissa Horn, David Goldstein, David Lightman, Maria Recio and Roy Gutman contributed to this story.