Republicans's letter undermines nuclear negotiations with Iran

Back when some prominent Republicans were reasonable, they endorsed some measures now advocated by the Obama administration. Quickly coming to mind is Obama Care, which essentially copied Massachusetts’ 2006 health care reform under then-Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, who now effectively opposes his own plan. This Massachusetts reform included the individual mandate of Obama Care, now opposed by Republicans, but also included in the Republican response to the Clinton administration’s unsuccessful 1993 health care reform proposal.

Less easily remembered is advice regarding Iran proactively given preceding the 2008 election to the next president — Barack Obama or John McCain — by former Republican secretaries of state James Baker III (President George H. W. Bush) and Henry Kissinger (Presidents Nixon and Ford). Both advised negotiating with Iran, preferring nuclear negotiations at the Secretary of State level, exactly the current situation between the U.S.’s John Kerry and Iran’s Mohammad Javad Zarif.

But Senate Republicans presently disdain this advice from their own party’s most esteemed former diplomats. Spurred by an unprecedented negative letter to Iranian officials containing 47 Republican Senate signatories including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, they are intensely trying to undermine nuclear negotiations with Iran, even without knowledge of what the final proposed deal may be.

Norm Luther

Spokane