Senate leaders continue in their quest to derail any agreement with Iran. What does the maneuvering really mean and what really happens if Congress manages to scuttle US participation in the P5+1 negotiations? Tune in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report to find out...
Senate leaders continue in their quest to derail any agreement with Iran. What does the maneuvering really mean and what really happens if Congress manages to scuttle US participation in the P5+1 negotiations? Tune in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report to find out...
Senate leaders continue in their quest to derail any agreement with Iran. What does the maneuvering really mean and what really happens if Congress manages to scuttle US participation in the P5+1 negotiations? Tune in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report to find out...
Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining us at the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams, who's the Executive Director of the Institute for Peace and Prosperity and also the co-host of this program.
And Daniel, good to have you with us today.
Good to be back.
Well, good.
I'd like to talk a little bit about what a lot of other people are talking about, and that's the Iran nuclear deal, the negotiations that have been going on now for months, if not years, that there's been certain groups that have tried to have better relationships with Iran.
But technically, it's really the UN, and we're part of a UN delegation of six countries trying to talk about it.
But there's a lot of politics going on right now, and Congress is involved.
And we might talk a little bit about should they be involved?
Are they acting within their constitutional rights to do so?
One talk, one headline just recently said: Congress wins role in deal with Iran.
And I thought, well, maybe they have a right to do it.
Do you have to win your constitutional right to at least check and see what the president's doing?
But just think how often the president does things if the Congress likes it and it's unconstitutional, like starting a war, there's no hubbub.
But what do you think is going on here?
Why is this such a big, big issue right now?
Well, it's funny you mentioned wins the role because they have absolutely no interest in winning a role in the current bombing of Yemen that the president, President Obama, is deeply involved in.
He's giving intelligence, giving targeting info.
They're refueling the Saudi fighters.
This is essentially the U.S. at war against Yemen.
The Congress has no interest in that.
So I think you're right in suspecting that there might be some political motives involved here.
Yeah, as usual.
But, you know, basically, I think the president does too much.
We have an imperial president, and if we were very consistent, the Congress should demand it.
So just, I think there's a pretty good argument that you could support the position that, well, we don't know exactly what he's doing.
And like you point out, the president is not totally trustworthy and always working toward peace and prosperity.
So we have a right and a duty to look at this.
And I think a lot of members of the Senate are supporting that position and even in the Congress.
But there are others, the really, really hawkish neoconservatives who are very adamant.
Not only are they opposed, without even knowing the details, of what this UN group are working on, they're opposed to any deal whatsoever.
And they've been very explicit about this.
Yeah, and they put in some resolutions that really tried to assert a very strong role in voting up or down this deal that the president's team has been negotiating.
The latest we have is that earlier this week, a compromise was reached because the president had promised to veto this Republican bill, Corker and Menendez bill, if it went to his desk.
And in order to get a veto-proof majority, the Senate had to water down compromise, whatever you want to call it, this bill.
And it went through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with an overwhelming support.
So the President reluctantly, I think, signed on and said, I'm not going to veto it.
But just a quick rundown of what the changes there were.
See, there was originally supposed to be in the original Corker bill a 60-day review period where the House and Senate could review it.
And during that period, the President was not allowed to lift any sanctions, even those that are in the President's purview by legislation to lift or not lift.
That was cut in half to 30 days.
The Senate and the House have 30 days to review the bill.
And then after that, the President can reduce sanctions.
The other thing was a removal of a requirement that the President every 90 days certify to Congress that Iran is not pursuing terrorism.
So it's interesting, and this reminds me of a lot of things that you dealt with when you were on the Hill.
Ultimately, this compromise, it does assert some authority, but ultimately it really has very little meaning because after 30 days, the House and Senate can either pass a resolution of disapproval, which is very unlikely to have a veto-proof disapproval, pass a resolution of approval, which is also very unlikely, or do nothing, which is the most likely, in which case, when they do nothing, the president's deal will move forward anyway.
Yeah, and what you describe is rather complicated, you know, the pros and cons of this, but I don't think that bothers a lot of people as long as they muddy the water.
But I thought Rouhani from Iran made a pretty good statement, probably accurate.
He says, we're not listening to a lot of that stuff because we are dealing with a group from the United Nations.
And there are five governments, including our own, from the Security Council, and Germany's involved.
It's been going on for a long time.
So it's not like the Congress has all of a sudden done this.
I don't like the idea of giving up on sovereignty to the United Nations.
But if we had a free society and a constitutional republic, we probably wouldn't be this much engaged in this anyway.
Where was the outcry when Pakistan got their nuclear weapon?
And India and other countries in the regions have nuclear weapons.
It just goes by, but this is a big issue, and it's been totally politicized in Washington.
And a lot of this might not have significant meaning because, you know, even if they say the Congress does something and sort of pushes us out at this point, could it happen that these other countries may open up their doors with the Iranians?
And is there any thaw there with any other countries?
Sure.
You know, the interesting thing is it's almost ironic that the U.S. now has to deal with the U.N. and it's because it was the U.S. who forced the U.N. to get involved in this other layer of sanctions because they wanted to show that the whole world is united against Iran.
So the U.S., the Hawks sort of got themselves into this mess by involving the UN.
But you're absolutely right.
If Congress somehow finds a way to scuttle the deal, the train has already left the station, essentially.
The Russians have already said, okay, this looks like the Iranians have compromised.
They look reasonable.
They've already started the thaw.
They just saw today that they've reopened their Luke Oil headquarters in Tehran.
They're starting to trade.
The Chinese are not far behind.
You can believe it.
And here's another thing where the U.S. foreign policy has gotten themselves in a bind, because the Russians are not inclined any longer to help the U.S. out with these sanctions that are hurting the Russian economy.
Because in the meantime, when the Russians were being cooperative, the U.S. put sanctions on the Russians to hurt their economy.
So they burned their bridges on this as well.
You make a pretty good case for non-intervention, mind our own business, stay out of entangling alliances.
But, you know, when I think about the big picture here, the excuse for the Congress getting involved was a constitutional excuse.
We have this constitutional obligation.
Certainly that is very clear-cut on a treaty.
Your president can't sign a treaty.
It has to be ratified by the Senate.
But that's sort of the excuse.
And it's one that I would listen to because, you know, I'm not for presidents doing whatever they want.
But what you've been saying, and the point we're trying to make, is that maybe the real reason was to scuttle the thing.
There are some people who, you know, they want sanctions on Venezuela.
They don't want to have any opening up of the door with Cuba.
They want to put sanctions on Russia.
It goes on and on.
I don't know what's wrong with the position that Jefferson spoke so clearly about, about non-entangling alliances and having free trade with countries and friendships with honest individuals.
So that, of course, I think would solve this problem.
Long Way From Ratification00:01:02
And yet, it seems like we're a long way from it.
I just am pleased that at least the door has been opened.
There are some talks.
If we could talk to the Chinese at the height of their communist system and the Soviets when they had already killed over 100 million people, why are people so frightened and intimidated and terrified of a country that for 10 years now has been proven by security forces in Israel and the United States at least indicated that there's no evidence in the United Nations, no evidence that they're building a bomb.
But you know, this is neocon propaganda, both from the U.S. and from Israel.
You know, they're always six months away, two months away, two weeks away, 45 minutes away from a bomb.
And this propaganda is designed to terrify people who don't bother to go look at the NIEs and the reports showing they're not doing it.
So that's unfortunately the triumph of propaganda.
Over and over again, and unfortunately, it's hard to compete with, but we'll keep trying.