Well, maybe living in a Blue state is not all its cracked up to be after all. I now read that Senator Coons has signed onto the Menendez bill with some of the worst the Republican party has to offer to mess with the Iran peace/nuke disarmament recipe.
I was taught that Congress has an advice and consent role with foreign policy, not a micro-management involvement. Yes, he’s a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. But after President Obama and Secretary Kerry have come up with the first potential breakthrough in our troubled relationship with Iran, he feels they need extra help? Come on now, they’ve done amazing work here after years of “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” refrains emitted from the mouths of the all too meddling Republican party.
Let the Administration do its work. Let them play out this welcomed initiative before you and your kitchen mates foul up the recipe. Those of us who served our country in the military don’t need this ill timed coupe you’re engaged in to cause the new regime in Iran to wonder who is in charge of negotiations from the U.S.A, empowering our own war mongers to go for a kill here.
Iranians have plenty of evidence of historical confusion about U.S. policy with them. They well remember our CIA’s role in the 50’s in overthrowing their hard earned first attempts at democracy. Again in the 70’s they remember our invitation to the Shah and his court who pillaged Iran’s coffers, to live out his last days in the U.S. after being ousted. And again in the 80’s when Republicans sabotaged President Carter’s peaceful efforts to retrieve our hostages for Reagan to win the U.S. Presidency. Not also to forget the Iran/Contra crime by the Reagan administration. Not a great track record, eh? They really are wondering who is running the kitchen here and now you and your R buddies are about to screw it up again.
The sanctions we have going there, relaxed a bit for these breakthrough negotiations, are for policy change aims in Iran, not punishment. Menendez wants to reduce further Iranian oil sales with a global oil boycott in 2015. And, institute bans in engineering, mining and construction industries, all of which is fuel for the modernization of their economy. Tell me this, Senator Coons. What do international oil politics have to do with these proposed sanctions? You are well aware of Iran’s designs for gas pipelines across the middle east in competition with Bush’s buddies, the Saudis.
Also other trade politics figure in here including Iran’s enhancing its relationship with India and Iraq. Iran can be positioned through a peace/nuke disarmament deal to become a much bigger power in the middle east and Af/Pak region, further diminishing the house of Saud.
Or is it AIPAC’s and Israel’s justified paranoia about Iranian nuclear weapon’s development ? It appears your President and Secretary of State have a pretty good handle on stemming that threat through these negotiations. And certainly Israel’s paranoia is informed by their own undisclosed nuclear weapons stockpile, somehow being exempt from the world’s nuke disarmament movement.
So, Senator, give us the real rationale behind your recipe for spoiling the Iranian peace broth.