Is opposing the Iranian deal the only way for Obama to get Republicans to support it?

When Obama took office in January 2009, blind opposition to the President became the Republican strategy.

As written in 2012 in Time Magazine, ”... the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”

Robert Drapers’ Book on the matter details how this was the strategy from day one.

This was collaborated by Frontline

I myself, think that it is a question of never “give in to what the opposite side says”.It is either this or either that. Seems to me, as a Swedish guy, that the competion between the political sides is also the answer to to the diversity of your society. It is either this or either that. It is always about differences, not about similarities.

From what I understand reading up on US politics, there is still a question about socialism vs capitalism. That is insane. It doesn’t make sense.

In Sweden our “capitalist party” would in the US be seen as a socialist party. To be frank, the difference between demo and rep in the US is still, and has always been from a foreigners POW, about human values.

Simply put, it is about humans and what we can do for our fellow ones and how we see them. I love to see where you are going – from capitalism to socialsim. Because even Americans have a heart and starting to realise what matters.

Welcome to the club! It is time to stop hating people and start loving people!

It would be difficult to dispute the Republican strategy of “just say no” to everything as rather obvious. Just as it’s tough to deny that their overall approach to most issues revolves around the novel yet persistently demonstrated belief that “dumb is good”. It will be interesting to see what historians make of this era in America’s story. Whatever the verdict, I believe it’s safe to guess that for our friends on the right this is not “the Age of Enlightenment”.

I don’t understand your question? As asked it is confusing. If “is” are the Republicans who are opposing the deal….they are opposing it and how could they then support the deal if they oppose it and AFAICT, those who oppose the deal do so very strongly and oppose the deal not by the structure and details of the deal, they oppose it because they are against any deal with Iran who has made it abundantly clear that they the Iranians, want Americans heads and the extinction of Israel and that they oppose making a deal with a country of terrorists with a history of murdering and abusing innocent people.

That said, this “deal’ is an accord of eight nations….not just Obama. It is pretty arrogant and shortsighted to call the deal Obama’s deal as it is an accord of 8 nations including the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China plus Germany, plus the European Union.

What I find most perplexing is the upside to this deal NO ONE is talking about…not the Democrats who support the deal and not ever our President. The sanctions for the last 36 year WORKED! They kicked Iran’s ass and brought them to their knees. Iran is on the verge of societal collapse….their citizens are pissed at the leadership and on the verge of an uprising and that is what brought Iran back to the table and not their nuclear ambitions everyone seems to think. This so called deal was done to save Iran from total collapse. Had that happened, their country would be ripe pickings for ISIS, Taliban and Al qaeda. The Iranian banking system is in shambles and their Oil output is at a near standstill. Things are such a hot mess in Iran that the Iranian Parliament wanted to bring Ahmadinejad to answer to why things are such a hot mess and decided against it so their government did not look out of control to the international community.

This deal will allow Iran to avoid catastrophe and ideally become a stronger more stable government and these 8 countries who brokered the deal are all hoping to benefit from renewed trade with Iran. In reality the US stands to benefit the least from this deal and I am sure that in the meetings the other countries played with John Kerry like a sock puppet. So in reality this is not our deal nor Obama’s deal it is Russia’s, China’s, France, the UK and the EU’s deal. IMHO it is not a wise move to oppose a deal that was very important to all those other countries who brokered and approved this deal.

The politicians who oppose this deal are just feeding on the gullibility of the citizens who are too stupid and too lazy to find out what is really going on and again I am very perplexed at the lack of attention the reasons….the REAL reasons why the deal was done.

I suppose it’s easier to make everything about Obama than it is to actually defend the policies. For 7 years now, anyone that disagrees with Obama is a racist or just doesn’t like Obama. And for 7 years now our economy has languished with little real improvement. For 7 years now our international standing has declined.

@Cruiser makes a good point on the other players involved and it easy to see why they would want the sanctions removed. Russia wants to sell arms. China wants to buy oil. The EU needs another trading partner even worse than we do. They all benefit from this deal regardless of any nuclear capability. The question is why would we want it. It certainly doesn’t fit the goal of eliminating their nuclear ambitions and it vastly improves the financial support for terrorism. It virtually insures a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and foments unrest for the next few decades.

@ Cruiser is indeed correct, but the point that is missed is that if the United States fails to ratify the treaty, Russia, China, etc have all but declared that they will abandon the sanction regime, leaving us alone to hold the empty bag.

@Jaxk could you address my point about the strategy of obstruction discussed in the two websites I posted links to being part of a Republican plan all along and how this fits in with your views?

For those interested, Here is an essay on the declining US influence in the world. It discusses causes, possible repercussions and consequences.

One item of note is the following: “Since Kennedy’s suggestion of imperial overstretch, the discussion of decline has cyclically arisen, it has been stated that ‘[e]very ten years, it is decline time in the United States.’ attributed to Josef Joffe in ‘The Default Power: The False Prophecy of America’s Decline’, Foreign Affairs 88: 5, 2009 p.2

@rojo – Obama made no secret of his economic plan. That’s why I opposed him. I would oppose anyone with those economic plans and I would encourage anyone I could to oppose them. I never believed they were good for the country and the fact that they didn’t work justifys my opposition. It all seems very straight forward to me. Republicans had lost the presidency and congress to the worst economic plan imaginable. Of course they would work to get it back.

On the other hand, Democrats immediately dropped into their plan of accusing any opposition of Racism. They have followed that playbook ever since. So now you find a book written by a liberal accusing Republicans of opposing Obama’s agenda. I’m neither surprised nor do I assign much credibility to it.

@Jaxk You should pay close attention and notice that the sanctions are doomed. That’s what this is about. No one other than us wants to play ball. That’s why Obama will settle. It’s the simple calculation that while Israel might still wag the U.S. Dog around, the EU, Russia, and China remain unencumbered with an Israeli tail, and have thoroughly learned the great lesson of capitalism. For even the threat of Iranian nukes is not going to interfere with the desire for profits.

@stanleybmanly – Yes, we’ve spent the last 7 years diminishing US political, economic, and military power. We’ve demonstrated that there is no benefit to helping us nor any penalty for opposing us. So now we have no real influence over world affairs so the only answer is to settle. What a wonderful solution.

@Jaxk. Oh we still have influence. It’s Israel who is without friends aside from the big dumb dog. But the truth is that we don’t dare drive Iran to the wall. The Europeans (and we as well) are desperate. Iran is the last best and ONLY hope for the elimination or even the chance of controlling ISIS. There are going to be some humiliating alliances before the entire populations of Syria, Iraq, etc. transfer themselves to Europe. But it’s going to happen, simply because no elected government in the world can engage Isis in the necessary protracted ground struggle to dislodge and eradicate “the caliphate” and retain political power at home (thank you GW).

@Jaxk You really don’t seem to appreciate that Obama’s hand has been forced pretty much since the “decider” handed him the steaming turd that is the Middle East.

@stanleybmanly – I know you want to believe that but the truth is that the Middle East was fairly stable when Bush left office. It was the feckless policies of Obama that have reduced our success to the simmering cesspool we now have. It’s not just the Middle East where his feckless policies are creating problems but all over the world. Russia is militarily invading Ukraine, China is building military bases out of what was once open water in the South China seas, and both of them laughing at our incompetence. Blame Bush if you want, it won’t change the facts.

You’re right it’s unfair to blame Bush alone. But let me put it this way. What do you suppose the catastrophe in Iraq demonstrated to ambitious pushy folks regarding the strategic limitations of the United States? And don’t fool yourself into thinking Iraq was EVER stable once we entered the place and removed the lid from the boiling pot. You refuse to understand that the single failure in Iraq effectively destroys the political feasibility of an aggresive stance on the part of an American President for THE NEXT 20 YEARS. The public won’t put up with it.

And all this speculation on the decline of the United States and Obama’s role in the slide? I don’t fault Obama OR Bush either ( except for the obscene pile of money thrown into his wars). The decline of the country was ordained and well on its way back in the days when Ross Perot (hardly a limp wristed liberal) was screeching about that “loud sucking” sound, because as you can certainly see capitalism doesnt give a single solitary damn about the interests or well being of the United States or the people inhabiting them. When the transparent lie was floated that this place would be just fine without a manufacturing sector, our doom was effectively sealed. So the Chinese build their bases and finance them with OUR money from taxes formerly paid by American workers. AND THE RICH GET RICHER!

@stanleybmanly – I agree with you on the loss of manufacturing as a problem. Where we disagree is on the cause of the loss. Salaries are not the only criteria. Taxes, regulation, and the overall business environment contribute immensely and they are controlled by an overzealous government.You’re blaming capitalism for things that socialism has created.

Just as a side note, I can’t believe you’re complaing about the Bush deficit while Obama has doubled it. Fiscal responsibility is not in the liberal lexicon.

Wages are pretty much the ONLY ISSUE. If regulation were indeed an issue, they would have been “regulated” with prohibitive penalties for leaving. No the balance sheet has been rigged for decades simply because the winners own those responsible for supposed regulation, as well as those responsible for our tax laws AND their enforcement.

Just a quick not from David Kaiser:
“Meanwhile, the illusion of American omnipotence, a phrase coined about 65 years ago by a British historian, Denis Brogan, has never been stronger, and dominates our military and foreign policy establishment. That is why 50 courageous military intelligence analysts are complaining that their reports have been altered (like U.S. intelligence estimates of Viet Cong strength in 1967) to make it look like we are winning. We are also refusing to recognize that in one way or another, nearly every regional power in the Middle East wants to make the conflict worse, not better—including the Turks, who are much more interested in fighting separatist Kurds….. than doing anything about ISIS.”

You know, maybe Obama should have come out and said ” I have looked over this Iran deal that our representative John Kerry and the those of seven other sovereign countries have come up with and I don’t like it, not one bit. In fact, it is so bad I am not even going to put it before Congress for review but going to let it rot on the corner of my desk.”

Then, as @mazingerz88 implies, we would have had howls of righteous indignation from the Republicans, who had suddenly categorically determined, sight unseen, it was the best idea they themselves had not managed to come up with since Cheneys’ decision to invading Iraq, and then demand that they get to pretend to look it over and issue their indisputable approval despite Obamas misgivings.

Thanks Obama for not thinking this thing through.

The most cynical take on this is that the Republicans want to avoid doing anything and pin the blame for inaction on the President and the Democrats, giving them a shot at the White House. The last congressional session was one of the least productive in history. I wonder what things will be like for the current one, now that the Republicans control the Senate.

@Jaxk I could care less about the Bush or Obama deficits. I AM complaining about the expense of the wars. Obama’s doubling of the deficit is the direct result of the bailouts and other crap associated with the Great Recession of 07 and YOU know it. I could just as readily state that Obama’s doubling of the deficit resulted from paying down Bush’s recession.

Actually, the bailouts didn’t cost us anything. We made money on those.

so I’ve been told. But my point is that Obama has steered us through some very rough waters. Considering the things on his plate when he came into office, and the disposition of his opposition, his achievements are rather impressive, and my great worry is that we will look back on his administration as “the good old days”.

I can’t come up with a single achievement. He didn’t steer us through rough waters, he hit every rock and reef out there. The idea that we may look back on these as the good old days, scares the shit out me.

@Jaxk My thoughts exactly. The list we should put together is the stuff he said he would but didn’t do. I lost count of the red lines in the sand and Assad is still killing at will.

Rocks or reefs aside, he
1. managed to avoid the greatest depression in the history of the world.
2. shut down the great bleeding debacle in Iraq.
3.Against unbelievable opposition, rammed through the ACA
4 Hunted down and killed Ben Laden
5 Bought us 10 years of a no nuke Iran.

Assad is killing at will, because BUSH squandered our people’s trust in its government. Obama’s threat for military intervention was a bluff, that he had the good sense not to back up. Assad is killing at will, because BUSH rendered it politically impossible for ANY democratically elected government ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD to do the dirty work required for his elimination. This is the truth about Assad, ISIS, and ALL things Middle East.

@stanleybmanly – You’ve got a great imagination, I’ll give you that.

1. “managed to avoid the greatest depression in the history of the world”. Wow, I suppose you could say that he also avoided an intergalactic war by shutting down the manned space program. The recession was comparable to the recession in 1981 and the recession in 2000. What Obama did was to extend the recession for 10 years. I don’t call that an achievement.

2. “shut down the great bleeding debacle in Iraq.” – What he did was to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He acquired a friendly and cooperative government and tossed them into the hands of Iran. I want to say an idiot could have done that but an idiot did.

3. “Against unbelievable opposition, rammed through the ACA.” – He did that unfortunately most of the public doesn’t want it. The legislation has been underwater since it was passed. It’s not an achievement if the people affected don’t like or want it. He did it to us not for us.

4 “Hunted down and killed Ben Laden” – I’m not sure this is something to base a presidency on but hell, let him have it. 8 years as president and his shining moment is that he killed someone. OK

5 “Bought us 10 years of a no nuke Iran.” – The deals not even inked yet and you’re declaring it a success. There’s a fine line between optimistic and delusional. you may have crossed it.

When the list is complete, you could break it up into two parts; Things he couldn’t accomplish because of Republican opposition and Things he wouldn’t have accomplished if he had wasted his time trying because of Republican oppositon.

We’ll see about the deal on the treaty. Perhaps I am jumping the gun, though most would agree that the bonehead opposition has lost. We NEVER had anything like a victory in Iraq, despite W’s embarrassing declaration on the aircraft carrier. Unlike his father, who stayed awake during his tour of Yale, the 200 year lesson that NO Western power EVER prevails through meddling in the Middle East was lost on W and his team. The warning of the Russian experience in Afghanistan was taken to heart by W’s dad, who kicked the shit out of Saddam, left the bully in place and hightailed it out of the place as though his life depended on it. I’m surprised that you regard the recession of O7 as just another ho-hum downturn, and not the greatest and most threatening economic event since the great depression. Like most conservatives, short memories seem to be rather endemic in you folks. The thing that distinguished the 07 recession from every one of those you named was that it is the first and only one in my lifetime accompanied by the loudly repeated threat from CONSERVATIVE pundits of “global economic collapse”. You might think Obama responsible for the “slow” recovery, but it would seem that the one thing pointing to the severity of the recession THROUGH WHICH WE ARE STILL LIVING is that this one is not going away. It is a landmark event in the decline of OUR collective standard of living, and the only thing disguising the true enormity of it is the Fed’s dogged insistence on holding down interest rates. It’s a new country since 07 Jaxk, and you can believe those folks who tell you that America’s best days are ahead of us if you choose. My take on such sentiments is that if this indeed is the case, you and I cannot possibly live long enough to witness such a thing.

You may be right in that if the liberals take Washington again this next election cycle, the damage may be irrepairable. It would be good to get a real leader in office but I don’t see one on the horizon. Someone along the lines of Reagan or Kennedy. they had a way of getting people to follow them even if you didn’t want to. Not the leading from behind strategy we seem to have fallen into (it used to be called following). Your memory seems to be the short one. The recessions of 1981 and 2000 were in fact quite severe. The screaming about 2007 being the worst since the Great Depression was a phrase coined by Obama to try and make himself look better. The bailouts arrested the decline but the Stimulus, tax hikes, tsunami of regulations, and the war on business have stifled any recovery. Every president has had their challenges. Some respond better than others. The really weak ones declare the challenges are too great, nobody could deal with them. That’s a cop out to cover their incompetence. We still have time to repair the damage but not a lot of time and making it more difficult to do business in the US isn’t going to solve the problem. IF you want jobs, you need business. Employers aren’t the enemy regardless of your political ideology. If you force them out of the country, they take the jobs with them.

I will agree that leadership matters. But Reagan would be skewered and run out of town on a rail by today’s conservatives if he dared showed his face. He’s another one that declared that “government is the problem”, then doubled the national debt. And corporations aren’t leaving here because of stifling regulations and over taxation. That’s the standard line dished out to suckers. And the preeminent example of leadership in the history of this place was neither Kennedy nor Reagan, It was Franklin Roosevelt, the most ruthless and unabridged socialist you and I will ever see. And here we have a BIG problem for the whole conservative laissez-faire “market knows best” religion. For Roosevelt is the one man that indisputably changed the country and provided us with whatever safety net that exists. It was Roosevelt who managed to convince the citizens of this country that it IS the DUTY of a government not to permit people to starve in the streets, contrary to MARKET dictates. It was Roosevelt who understood that the interests of the rich might not coincide with those of the country. The difference between now and then is that today’s conservatives lack the intellectual capability to recognize the basic truth of this fact!

I wasn’t around during FDR which is why I didn’t use him as an example. I will agree however that he was a great leader. You seem to have the rest backwards however. FDR wasn’t a great leader because of his ideology but rather in spite of it. Same with Reagan. They had an innate ability to inspire people to follow them, to trust them even when things look the darkest. Kennedy had that as well.

If I used your logic FDR would never be embraced by the current Democratic party. He opposed public sector unions and got us into WWII after promising he wouldn’t. Like Obama however he extended the depression for more than a decade. His leadership kept people following him even while he was making the depression worse. Go figure.