Here’s the situation: the Democrats are, including the right wing of the party and those under pressure from a public unversed in foreign relations, rallying behind the Iran deal – only two Democratic Senators have registered opposition to the deal, both heavily involved with Israel. The current GOP leadership, on the other hand, is united in opposition to the deal, the GOP presidential contenders competing to make outrageous comments in order to catch the attention and votes of the GOP base. Alone amongst the allies of the USA, Israel stands against the deal. While some of the Mid East allies are grumpy, even Saudi Arabia has signed on.
But now, as Steve Benen @ Maddowblog notes, the old GOP leadership is showing up for perhaps its last stand – against those who supplanted it.
Because, whether the right likes it or not, the GOP’s elder statesmen keep announcing their support for the diplomatic solution.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed support for the nuclear agreement with Iran, calling the various planks Iranian leaders accepted “remarkable” and dismissing critics’ concerns over its implementation.
“It’s a pretty good deal,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Powell, a veteran of the Bush/Cheney administration and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, described the provisions of the Iran deal as “remarkable” and praised the “very vigorous verification regime [that] has been put into place.”
PoliticusUSA notes:
“They had stockpiled something in the neighborhood of 12,000 kilograms of uranium. This deal will bring it down to 300 kilograms,” Powell said. “It’s a remarkable reduction. I’m amazed that they would do this this but they have done it.”Putting a finely honed knife to the back of Republican fearmongering about the Iran deal, Powell said, “These are remarkable changes. We have stopped this highway race that they were going down and I think this is very, very important.”
For the finishing blow, Powell took out the Republican argument that we just gave them everything and got nothing, “Will they comply with it? Well, they get nothing until they comply and that’s the important part of the arrangement.”
He joins Brent Snowcroft, and former Senators Richard Lugar and John Warner in supporting the deal – senior members of the GOP who have been shoved aside by the current leadership. Of course, not all the GOP retirees are in the same boat. From another Benen article:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to speak today at a D.C. think tank, delivering remarks intended to condemn the international nuclear agreement with Iran. If an ignominious exchange over the weekend was evidence of his expertise, however, Cheney might want to reschedule, brush up on the details, and rethink his approach.
The underlying challenge for the failed former V.P. is the degree to which his own Iran policy failed spectacularly. Iran didn’t have a meaningful nuclear weapons program until Tehran developed one – during the Bush/Cheney administration. At the time, in response to Iran’s nuclear program, the Bush/Cheney administration did nothing – except, of course, strengthen Iran’s regional power by invading Iraq.
Here’s the thing: this is not so much a debate any longer as a display of leadership. Leadership quite often means grabbing the tether of a bucking horse and leading it where it should go, not where it wants to go. In this case, the current GOP leadership and the GOP base have convinced themselves that the deal is horrid – while the Democrats do not agree, and the rest of the world, having examined the deal, and in important cases actually signed on, watches in a sort of quiet horror at the antics of the GOP.
Lugar, Snowcroft, Warner, and now Powell are showing how to be a mature political party by setting aside partisan politics at the national border and evaluating events in a proper way – that is, by putting the interests of the nation above party. By putting honesty above party. By not being swayed by the cries of the uninformed base, of the commercially motivated pundits with no skin in the game, of the political amateurs currently occupying national seats who fail to realize that “boots on the ground” and other such marketing phrases really mean People Will Die.
Let their be no mistake: the degree to which the GOP Members of Congress choose to support the Iran deal will be a measure of the maturity of the GOP Party.1
1And how long after these courageous members of Congress stand up and declare their allegiance is to their country, first, and Party, second, will the wild cries of “RINO” ring out, and soon their skins will hang from the walls of the Party faithful, who will then resume their slack-jawed, drooling wandering through the hallways of Futile Purity?
