PRESIDENT Obama attacked the Republicans on Monday over an incendiary letter, sent by them to Iran’s leaders, seeking to sabotage his foreign policy in the interests of the Israeli government, by warning that any nuclear deal signed between the US P5+1 group and Iran will be scrapped by the next Republican president.
Forty-seven Republican senators – including several potential 2016 presidential candidates – in their letter to the Islamic Republic warned its leaders that ‘It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system’.
The revolting Republicans warned that any deal agreed before Obama leaves office in 2017 is ‘nothing more than an executive agreement between President Barack Obama and (supreme leader) Ayatollah Khamenei’.
‘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.’ The Republicans are opting for the Israeli-Saudi option, that is a virtually immediate US-backed Israeli attack on Iran.
The projected nuclear agreement would enable Iran to continue to develop its nuclear power programme for peaceful purposes, without any US-EU sanctions.
Obama reacted by stating that ‘I think that it is somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with hardliners in Iran… It is an unusual coalition.’
In fact in their haste to attack both Iran and Syria Republican leaders, such as John McCain, have visited Syria where they have solidarised themselves with anti-Assad fighters who are battling in Syria and Iraq for the ISIS movement, using the US weapons that they had been supplied with.
The letter to the Iranian leaders puts the Republican Party forward as the direct agent of a foreign power, that is Zionist Israel, which depends on US aid, whose President Netanyahu was invited by the Congress to address it, and received a standing ovation from the assembled Republicans after every line that he delivered.
‘Let’s be clear,’ said Senate Democratic leader Reid on the floor of the Senate on Monday, ‘Republicans are undermining our commander in chief while empowering the ayatollahs.’ This is usually called treason!
The split in the US ruling class is now an open wound, that can only deepen and become more and more gangrenous. At home the Republicans call trade union members ‘terrorists’, and are battling to make trade unionism illegal, while abroad they link themselves with some of the most right-wing forces on the planet.
The Republican intervention comes at an extremely delicate time for the US operation against IS. The US military’s top officer General Dempsey warned on Monday from Iraq: ‘I come away a bit concerned that it’s going to be difficult to sustain the coalition for the rest of the challenge – which is trans-regional – unless the government of Iraq can actually form that national unity platform to which they are committed.’
Flying over Baghdad by helicopter earlier, Dempsey noted Shiite militia banners flying over many buildings, describing ‘the plethora of flags, only one of which happens to be the Iraqi flag’.
He said Sunni Arab countries in the region, several of which are taking part in air strikes in Syria, were anxious about Iran’s influence in Iraq.
In a joint news conference with Dempsey in Baghdad, Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obaidi made no apologies for enlisting military aid from Iran.
‘We are in a state of war and we look to our friends to help us in this confrontation,’ Obaidi said.
In his talks with the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Obaidi, Dempsey said he acknowledged their ‘instinct’ to look for assistance from any country ready to provide it.
But he also stressed that ‘they should also be aware of the challenge of holding together the… coalition’.
Workers in the USA and throughout the world must take advantage of this weakened and weakening state of US imperialism.
US workers must break with both the Republicans and the Democrats and set up a Labour Party to fight for socialism, alongside the workers of the world.
The workers of the Middle East must unite to drive the imperialist powers out of the region, along with the ISIS and Al Nusra front reactionaries, to establish a Middle Eastern Federation of Socialist States.
