An Open
Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran:
It has come to our attention while observing your
nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our
constitutional system. It’s really complicated. We even have a TV show that
helps us understand it. Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention
two features of our Constitution—the power to make binding international
agreements and the different character of federal offices—which you should
seriously consider as negotiations progress. It’s a lot like buying a car. A
really big American car. Just a word of advice: Don’t pay for the undercoating.
First, under our Constitution, while the president
negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of
ratifying them. We spend a large part of every day hollering and gesturing at
one another in annoyance. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify
it by a two-thirds vote. That’s fractions. A so-called
congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House
and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a
three-fifths vote in the Senate). More fractions. Anything not approved
by Congress is a mere executive agreement. Executive agreements are like dust
in the wind. Which is a pretty cool song by Kansas. Which is a state in our
country. It’s pretty flat.
Second, the offices of our Constitution have
different characteristics. For example, the president may serve only two
4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms.
That works out to be like seven hundred dog years. As applied today, for
instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us
will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades. Some of us never leave
our offices. We are afraid to. Many of us know little of the outside world as a
result. A subset of these know little of
personal hygiene.
What these two constitutional provisions mean
is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program
that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive
agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. So there. 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.
And if you’ve ever seen how vicious a pen stroke can be, you just wait.
We hope this letter enriches your knowledge
of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as
nuclear negotiations progress. Oh, and my dad could beat up your dad any day of
the week. And in this particular metaphor I don’t mean our president because we
don’t like him. Get it? We've been blowing up countries like yours for nearly a hundred years, so just watch yourselves, see?
Sincerely,
A whole bunch of guys with the letter R after their name (R)
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