[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3321-3322]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         NEGOTIATIONS WITH IRAN

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as I speak here today President Obama and 
his administration are engaged in negotiations to prevent Iran from 
building a nuclear weapon. These negotiations are unprecedented and 
very critical to our country and the world. The stakes couldn't be 
higher. We as leaders should do everything we can to help these 
negotiations succeed. When it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a 
nuclear bomb, we should put partisanship way to one side.
  Sadly, though, the judgment of my Republican colleagues seems to be 
clouded by their abhorrence of President Obama. Today Republican 
Senators actually sent a letter to the Iranian leadership aimed at 
sabotaging these negotiations.
  Let's be very clear. Republicans are undermining our Commander in 
Chief while empowering the Ayatollahs. Just last week Prime Minister 
Benjamin Netanyahu was here in the Capitol decrying the evil intent of 
the Iranian leadership. Republicans at that speech, which took place 
down the hall from where we stand today, in the House Chamber, stood, 
applauded, stomped their feet, and yelled in support of what the Prime 
Minister of Israel had to say. Today those same Republicans are trying 
to negotiate with the very same leaders in Iran with whom Netanyahu 
said we shouldn't be negotiating. This simply doesn't make sense.
  The outcome of the negotiations between the United States, France, 
the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia, and the entire world is so 
important. The main participants in these negotiations are the United 
States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, and Russia. Even 
though we are one of the negotiators, the negotiations affect the 
entire world. This letter is a hard slap in the face of not only the 
United States but our allies. This is not a time to undermine our 
Commander in Chief purely out of spite.

[[Page 3322]]

  We should always have a robust debate about foreign policy, but it is 
unprecedented for one political party to directly intervene in an 
international negotiation with the sole goal of embarrassing the 
President of the United States.
  Throughout the 8 years of President Bush's Presidency, Democrats--I 
disagreed with his foreign policy. I spoke about it on the floor lots 
of times. We know the disaster of the war in Iraq. But even at the 
height of our disagreements with President George W. Bush, Senate 
Democrats never considered sending a letter to Saddam Hussein or other 
Iraqi leaders at the time--never considered it, nor to be an 
embarrassment to the Commander in Chief, George W. Bush.
  So I say to my Republican colleagues: Do you so dislike President 
Obama that you would take this extraordinary step? Obviously so.
  Barack Obama is the President. This is an extraordinary step, and why 
it was taken, I really don't understand, other than a dislike of the 
President. Barack Obama is President. I have agreed with him on certain 
things, and I have disagreed with him on certain things, but he is my 
President, and he is a President to all of us. It is time for 
Republicans to accept that the citizens of our country twice elected 
President Obama by large margins as President of the United States.
  Obviously Republicans don't know how to do anything other than 
attempt these seemingly juvenile political attacks against the 
President. Congressional Republicans don't know how to get things done. 
They don't know how to govern. If you don't believe what I just said, 
look at the press today; read a newspaper; look at the news. The 
pundits all agree that the Republicans are in a state of disarray here 
in the Congress of the United States. They don't know what to do or how 
to do it.
  Today's unprecedented letter, originated by a U.S. Senator who took 
his oath of office 62 days ago, is a kind of pettiness that diminishes 
us as a country in the eyes of the world. The Republicans need to find 
a way to get over their animosity toward President Obama. I can only 
hope they do it sooner rather than later.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. I will be happy to yield to the assistant leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator for his remarks on this letter.
  I can't think of a precedent where we have had one political party in 
the Senate try to intervene in international negotiations.
  In this situation, if these negotiations fail, it is pretty clear to 
me that one of the options on the horizon will be military action 
against Iran. I pray to goodness that we never reach that point.
  But I wish to ask the Senator from Nevada, those who are so anxious 
to scuttle these negotiations, to undermine these negotiations, do you 
think they have reflected on the fact that the alternative could be 
another war in the Middle East?
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, with whom I have served in this 
Congress for 33 years, I have never seen anything like it. I have never 
seen anything like it.
  I disagreed with President Bush so very much on what he was doing to 
our country, but I would never ever have considered anything even close 
to this.
  The only thing I can figure out is what I said. The dislike of the 
President is so intense by the Republican leaders that this is what 
they are doing. They can't accept the fact that this good man, Barack 
Obama--this man with the unusual name--was elected twice by 
overwhelming margins by the people of this country, and he is doing his 
very best to try to alleviate a problem that exists.
  It would be better for the world--I think everyone should acknowledge 
that--if we could work something out with Iran so they don't get 
nuclear weapons, and we have to try to do that. To prejudge what is 
going to come, if anything--the President of the United States said 
there is less than a 50-percent chance he can get it done, but 
shouldn't we let him try?
  Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator will yield for another question, in the 
history of the Senate to date, back to the 1940s when Senator 
Vandenberg from Michigan joined in a bipartisan effort on foreign 
policy as one of the hallmark events in the history of this great body, 
and for decades when we served in the Senate, kind of the stock phrase 
was that politics ends at the water's edge when the President is 
representing the United States overseas. We can argue and use our 
constitutional powers to argue back and forth, but we want to give the 
President the authority to try to protect and defend this country.
  Can the Senator from Nevada, who is a student of history, recall any 
other time when a group of Senators--a partisan group of Senators--
reached out to a party in negotiations with the United States directly, 
as this letter has done?
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, I guess my thoughts have been clouded 
by the people I have worked with here. It was just a few years ago that 
two outstanding U.S. Senators who will go down in the history books--
Dan Inouye and Ted Stevens. One was a good Republican, and one was a 
good Democrat. They worked arm in arm on issues that made our country a 
better country. They would never ever consider such a thing. If they 
were here today, they would be on this floor demanding: What is going 
on here? One of these two men was a ranking member of the defense 
appropriations committee that funds the military. These two men worked 
together on that subcommittee for more than a decade, and they worked 
together.
  My judgment is clouded by the people I have worked with here who 
would never consider anything like this.
  Mr. DURBIN. I will ask the Senator from Nevada a further question. 
Didn't we also have a similar precedent when Senator McCain and Senator 
Kerry were leaders in an effort to finally establish diplomatic 
recognition of Vietnam and normalize relations? This was a bipartisan 
effort to try to move us beyond a painful chapter in our history which 
cost so many American lives. That, too, was bipartisan, as I recall.
  Mr. REID. And if anyone should have some ill feelings about Vietnam, 
John McCain, who came to the House of Representatives with the Senator 
and me, was in a prison camp for 5 years and 4 of those years were in 
solitary confinement. John Kerry was shot, was wounded--highly 
decorated, but he had a little beef with the Vietnamese. And they 
worked together because they thought it would be good for our country 
to reestablish relations with that country.
  So my mind is--I repeat--clouded with the experience I have in this 
body with leaders such as Mark Hatfield, a Republican, who would never 
ever consider anything like this.
  I am dumbfounded that 47 of my colleagues would sign a letter. Last 
week they were over here, as I said, jumping up and down and cheering 
the Prime Minister of Israel because he was denigrating what was going 
on in Iran--you can't negotiate with these people--and now they are 
sending a letter to the same people whom they were cheering against 
just a week ago?
  Would the Chair announce the business of the day.

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