GOP leaders in the Senate are feebly complaining and whining about the Democrats’ solid support for President Barack Obama’s nuke-and-cash deal give-away to Iran.
The Democrats are expected to block debate on the GOP’s long-planned resolution of disapproval, which–if passed–would cripple the administration’s ability to provide aid and support to Iran, as required by the deal.
But if the resolution is blocked by Democrats, Obama will claim his give-away is backed by Congress.
The embarrassed GOP leaders unenthusiastically criticized Obama’s stonewall of 40-plus senators, but they trashed an alternative anti-deal strategy, and they did not even threaten to run attacks-ads against Obama supporters or make budget cuts to their favorite spending programs.
The GOP leaders made their excuses at an early afternoon press conference, while thousands of conservative voters were holding a loud protest against Obama’s giveaway outside the Capitol.
So far, Obama has rallied at least 40 Democrat senators to block even a debate for the long-planned GOP-drafted resolution that would reject the deal.
The leaders’ repeated failure to block Obama, amid much GOP bluster, is derided by GOP supporters as “Failure Theater.”
GOP leaders will fight hard for goals sought by business groups–such as free-trade deals–but will only pretend to fight for conservatives’ ideological and social priorities, such as pro-American immigration reform, say these critics.
GOP leaders said they still hoped the Corker disapproval resolution would undermine Obama’s secretly-negotiated deal with Iran. The deal is expected to fund Iran’s nuclear-weapons development program, as well as a wave of jihadi attacks against U.S. allies in the region.
“Hopefully” we can send a resolution to the President, said Sen. Bob Corker, the GOP’s foreign relations chairman, who crafted an unprecedented measure that validates Obama’s deal, unless two-thirds of the Senate push through a resolution to reject the deal.
Corker’s measure reversed the usual Senate rules, which would require two-thirds approval for any White House deal to be validated. He championed the reversal after Obama threatened to completely ignore Congress while he reversed U.S. foreign policy and funded the nation’s leading Middle East enemy.
A Democratic stonewall “would be unfortunate, it would be a tragic outcome,” complained GOP Sen. John Thune, who had earlier endorsed the Corker measure, which allows the Democrats to protect Obama’s give-away.
“I would hope our colleagues reconsider this unfortunate course of action,” said Sen. John Cornyn, another GOP leader, who backed the Corker measure.
The GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, was equally weak.
The Democrats will block the GOP’s plan, McConnell admitted. They “will leave Congress with no voice,” he complained.
The only hope, he suggested, is that “the next president will be able to start all over.”
But by 2017, Obama will have killed the sanctions, transferred the cash, jump-started Iran’s military build-up, and cemented the Russian-Iran alliance.
Even though Democrats now have the 40-plus votes to block debate, Corker and McConnell also rejected alternative strategies.
Corker rejected the proposal to pass a different resolution that would declare Obama to be in violation of the Corker measure. Once declared in violation of Corker plan, Obama’s plan would need–but would never get–two-thirds support in the Senate to claim validation, say proponents of the Corker-violation plan.
But Corker stuck with his failed plan, even though it is doomed by the Democrats’ 40-plus votes. “The best way to express concern [about Obama’s give-away] … is a [resolution] vote to disapprove the deal,” Corker claimed.
McConnell also waived away the alternative plan. “I don’t know where that takes us,” he said.
Once the Democrats block Corker’s resolution, as soon as this week, the Senate would not push any more anti-giveaway votes, McConnell asserted.
Any votes will be used by Democrats to posture as national security hawks, McConnell said. Republicans will not schedule doomed votes to help Democrats “deceive their constituents,” he said.
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