A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
When Steve Daines was Montana’s blessing in the U.S. House of Representatives, he supported shutting down the federal government to try to twist President Obama’s arm, thus earning the sobriquet Shutdown Steve. So it’s not really a suprise that as a U.S. Senator with less than 100 days on the job, he joined with 46 other U.S. Senators in signing a letter to Iran that attempts to hijack the President’s role in conducting foreign policy. As far as I can tell, it’s a letter without precedent in American history.
It’s also, as Duke Law Professor Curtis A. Bradley explains, a letter long on arrogance and short on accuracy:
Embarrassingly, the letter’s effort to provide a civics lesson to the Iranians about the US constitutional system betrays a surprising amount of ignorance about that very system. The letter also displays a lack of knowledge about the importance — to the United States — of adhering to binding international agreements.
The letter purports to describe the US constitutional process for concluding international agreements, explaining that either the Senate or the full Congress must normally “ratify” the agreement.
Otherwise, the letter states, all that one has is “a mere executive agreement.” Such an executive agreement, the letter contends, would only bind the current leaders of the United States and Iran and, therefore, “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.”
What the letter does not explain is that there are a variety of forms of international agreements concluded by the United States, all of which are fully binding under international law.
Bradley wrote a book on international law. Daines should read it before he says anything or signs something else on foreign policy.
Daines should also try writing a 5,000-word essay on what our policy on Iran should be, why, and how it should be conducted. Give him a stack of blue books and a box of pens. Put him in a quiet room with just a desk and a proctor. No aides, no phones, no computers, no reading material, no connection to the outside world; just the blank blue books and what’s in his mind.
And in a room down the hall, the same set-up for Sen. Cotton, the equally experienced Senator from Arkansas who wrote the letter to Iran.
Let’s see what they can do when they have to think for themselves.