Something About Progress (Something About Pride)

This seems important:

A Russian ship left Iran on Monday carrying almost all of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium, fulfilling a major step in the nuclear deal struck last summer and, for the first time in nearly a decade, apparently leaving Iran with too little fuel to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

(Sanger and Kramer)

This is what the #GOP47 wanted to prevent.

You know. Just something to keep in mind.

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Image note: P5+1 negotiating partners gathered in the United Nations Office at Vienna, Austria, 14 July 2015. (Detail of photo by Carlos Barria/AP Photo)

Sanger, David E. and Andrew E. Kramer. “Iran Hands Over Stockpile of Enriched Uranium to Russia”. The New York Times. 28 December 2015.

An Important Moment

We might take a moment to offer our congratulations to President Obama, his administration, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the negotiating partners of the P5+1, who announced today that they have achieved a tentative framework regarding the future of the Iranian nuclear program.

Iran and world powers reached a framework agreement on Thursday on curbing Iran’s nuclear program for at least a decade, a step toward a comprehensive accord that could end 12 years of brinkmanship, threats and confrontation.

The tentative agreement, after eight days of marathon talks in Switzerland, clears the way for talks on the future settlement that should allay Western fears that Iran was seeking to build an atomic bomb and in return lift economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The framework is contingent on reaching an agreement by June 30 and all sanctions on Iran remain in place until a final deal is reached.

(Charbonneau and Nebehay)

To the other, we should not pretend such naïveté as to expect that the hard part is done. If reaching a framework proved so difficult, we can only wonder what challenges will frustrate the next deadline, 30 June.

And, yes, in the moment it is perfectly acceptable to tell the #GOP47 to go screw. That warmongering conservatives are disappointed, or, who knows, even outraged by the thought of a peaceful, diplomatic resolution is their own damn problem, and ought to stay that way.

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Charbonneau, Louis and Stephanie Nebehay. “Iran, world powers reach initial deal on reining in Tehran’s nuclear program”. Reuters. 2 April 2015.

What It Comes To (Mr. Paul Goes to Washington Scratch Mix)

Okay, can of corn.

Steve Benen notes, well, among other things worth noting:

On NBC’s “Today” show yesterday morning, the Kentucky Republican told Matt Lauer that he signed on to the sabotage letter because he wanted to “strengthen the president’s hand.”

If there’s a way to see this as a coherent argument, I can’t think of it. Rand Paul thought it would strengthen Obama’s hand at the negotiating table if Republicans told Iranian officials not to trust or cooperate with Obama?

I’m surprised it took them this long.

On Monday, Daniel W. Drezner of Tufts University thus concluded his analysis of the fiasco for the Washington Post:

So, to sum up: Republican senators are trying to scuttle the negotiations with Iran. But not only do I think it won’t work, it might paradoxically help Obama.

It only took Mr. Paul a couple days beyond the requisite five seconds to figure out how to float this particular point as an excuse. They should have tried it sometime before the bit about the White House having no sense of humor.

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Image note: Detail, “U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks in Washington on Dec. 2, 2014.” (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Benen, Steve. “McCain, Rand Paul roll out new excuses for sabotage letter”. msnbc. 12 March 2015.

Drezner, Danel W. “Congress tries to go beyond trolling on foreign policy. It won’t work.”. The Washington Post. 9 March 2015.

Sabotage, or, How Republicans Love America

We have reached the point where Senate Republicans are actively working to subvert American foreign policy.

A group of 47 Republican senators has written an open letter to Iran’s leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with President Barack Obama’s administration won’t last after Obama leaves office.

Organized by freshman Senator Tom Cotton and signed by the chamber’s entire party leadership as well as potential 2016 presidential contenders Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, the letter is meant not just to discourage the Iranian regime from signing a deal but also to pressure the White House into giving Congress some authority over the process.

“It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system … Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement,” the senators wrote. “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.”

(Rogin)

Is this really a precedent Republicans want to set? Are they really prepared for the consequences of trying to usurp foreign policy from its Constitutionally-assigned executive purview? How might they react, in some future presidency, if Congressional Democrats tell the world that they do not intend to allow a Republican president to negotiate in good faith?

The Bubble (Bomb Bomb Iran Mix)

“What I wonder is, do the people at Fox think this kind of thing really serves their audience well? I guess they must, or they wouldn’t be doing it. But to me, it shows that they look on that audience as a bunch of suckers.”

―Paul Waldman

One of the interesting things about The Bubble―the epistemic closure of the conservative information industry that essentially substitutes conspiracy theories and political delusions for reality―is that you can always tell who watches FOX News. To wit, you might hear something in coming days about a poll suggesting a whopping eighty-four percent of Americans oppose the developing nuclear deal with Iran. Even prominent, allegedly respectable conservatives like Bill Kristol are getting in on it.

There are, of course, caveats.

A Modicum of Derisive Laughter

All I’m gonna say is that Cartoon Brian Williams has a point.

Detail of Tom the Dancing Bug, by Ruben Bolling, 12 February 2015; via Daily Kos Comics.

A Serious Question … Unfortunately

Should we find any significance in the proposition that American comedy outlets have a better grasp of current events than our regular news media?

Or, as The Onion put it in a headline:

Rumors Of Extramarital Affair End Campaign Of Presidential Candidate Who Didn’t Know China Has Nuclear Weapons