Media outlets are reporting Iranian President Rouhani’s remarks concerning the GOP. The reports are more or less the same, here’s the Jerusalem Post’s coverage:
The Iranian leader mocked the GOP presidential hopefuls, saying that some of them wouldn’t be able to find Iran on a map while Iranians consider their rhetoric “a form of entertainment.” …
“Can a government become a signatory to an international agreement and then the subsequent government tear it to shreds? This is something that only the likes of Saddam Hussein would do,” he said.
“Saddam Hussein, previous to attacking Iran in 1980, did sign an agreement with Iran and then tore it to shreds himself and then attacked Iran.”
“So any government that replaces the current government must keep itself committed to the commitments given by the previous administration; otherwise, that government, that entire country, will lose trust internationally and no longer have the type of needed trust to operate in the international arena.”
It’s an interesting interference in the upcoming American elections. The deal is undoubtedly his signature accomplishment, so we can figure this is a defense of it. The last couple of paragraphs are clearly a message to the GOP: The costs to the United States of tearing up an international agreement will be unbearable. The more adventurous might care to read between the lines and see this: Such an action would make the USA a pariah and prove to the world what we, the Iranians, have been saying all along: the Americans are untrustworthy.
These are valid points concerning international processes, and explain the working understandings the major American political parties have used for decades: politics stops at the border. Foreign policy is the bailiwick of the Administration. An agreement is binding on successor administrations and legislatures. The radicalized GOP of recent years has begun encroaching on these understandings, however, as ideological and, possibly, the economic issues of their corporate patrons, have come under pressure.
Whether the GOP really understands – and cares – is not clear. Their adherence to economic and political ideologies which have proven defective over time indicates their attention is focused on ideological purities rather than the pragmatic realities of governance. While I’ll grant that the standard practice of the major political parties, of potential candidates having to serve their time in lower offices or on the staff of current office holders, can make my teeth itch as it works to program candidates in certain ways that can be deleterious to the country (for a third world example, making the taking of bribes seem like a legal way to do business), I must admit that it also serves as a way to inculcate good political traditions. The current crop of GOPers have either not had a chance to learn these lessons, or didn’t have pounded into them that there are certain things that are the way they are because otherwise shit happens.
So, the USA as international pariahs? No, the GOP would not care, to a great extent. We’re a big country, we don’t need anyone else.
But to Democrats and Independents? Do the GOP Presidential candidates realize how bad they look every time they promise to tear up international agreements? Where’s the leadership in that party?
