Fox News:
President Obama, taking diplomacy into his own hands with his “dear Ayatollah” letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader, is drawing a seismic response on Capitol Hill.
“It is outrageous that, while the cries of moderate Syrian forces for greater U.S. assistance fall on deaf ears in the White House, President Obama is apparently urging Ayatollah Khamenei to join the fight against ISIS,” GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a joint statement.
The Associated Press confirmed the existence of the letter, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. According to the Journal, Obama wrote to Khamenei last month stressing their shared interest in confronting the Islamic State — and tying cooperation on that front to a deal over Iran’s nuclear program.
The U.S., Iran and other negotiators are facing a Nov. 24 deadline for such a deal.
But McCain and Graham noted Iran is fueling the violence by backing radical militias in Iraq and “doing everything in its power to aid the killing machine of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.”
They warned: “The consequences of this ill-conceived bargain would destroy the Syrians’ last, best chance to live in freedom from the brutal Assad regime.”
A congressional source also told Fox News that the letter would upset the inroads they’ve tried to make with “the Sunni league,” noting that the president should have informed Congress of this back-channel if it was in fact going on.
“This f***s up everything,” the source said. Iran’s government is Shiite-led, while the Islamic State is a Sunni terror group. The source was apparently referring to efforts to rally support among Sunni-led Arab states to confront ISIS.
Iran is not part of the U.S. coalition, but it has also been fighting the Islamic State on the ground. However, Iran’s interests in pursuing the Islamic State’s defeat differ from those of the Obama administration. Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad, who is a target of the militants and opposed by the U.S.
I have told you many times before-he is a muslim terrorist.
Back to business as usual: Republicans are running around in circles yapping hysterically about the content of a letter that they haven’t read, while FOX News cheers them on and works up the peanut gallery.
The only thing they actually know is that there was a written communication from one head of state to another regarding a common enemy that both nations are taking military action against. Surprise ‘effing surprise! Why would anyone with a reasonably functional brain think there wouldn’t be some level of communication? For one thing, if you don’t communicate on some level your forces might work at cross-purposes, or even direct accidental hostile action toward one another.
Are the GOP’s leaders borderline traitors, or are they simply politically opportunistic morons? I don’t discount the possibility of overlap. And I’m becoming less disinclined to word such questions in a pointed fashion, since those on the right seem to have no reluctance to do so.
@Greg:
It’s not the GOP negotiating with our sworn enemy, Iran. Obama is a Democrat and I can promise you, FDR is rolling over in his grave at how far his party has fallen.
As previously pointed out, republicans are condemning Obama’s communication with the leader of Iran without even knowing what the letter said.
They’re attacking Obama for what, exactly? They actually don’t know. It’s just their habitual behavior to attack and condemn the leader of their own nation at every opportunity, and the habitual behavior of their supporters in the cheap seats to applaud and cheer and stomp their feet whenever they do.
Our sworn enemy? They took a pinky-finger oath to destroy us?
Sometimes it’s important to have understandings with people you don’t see eye-to-eye with. Communist Russia, for example, was an essential ally in the war with Nazi Germany. Iran is at war with ISIL, or ISIS, or whatever you want to call them. Do the geopolitical and military geniuses you support believe that fact should be totally ignored? If not, who do they imagine should open a line of communication with them?
So, this is Obama’s FORTH letter to a leader in Iran.
None of these letters results in a reply.
Poor Obama.
“You know, I actually believe my own bullshit,” Obama told journalist Richard Wolffe back in 2009.
Yes, he does.
But nobody else does.
@Nanny:
What about Greggie?
I believe the irony of Obama’s comment to Wolffe may have flown by over some people’s heads.