The unprecedented step taken by 47 Republican Senators writing a letter to the Iranian leadership ignores the 200 years of conduct of American foreign policy, Secretary of State John Kerry said today.
"My reaction to the letter was utter disbelief. During my 29 years here in the Senate, I never heard of nor even heard of it being proposed anything comparable to this. If I had, I can guarantee you, no matter what the issue, no matter who was President, I would have certainly rejected it," Kerry told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing.
"I think no one is questioning anybody's right to dissent. Any Senator can go to the floor any day and raise any of the questions that were raised in that. But to write to the leaders in the middle of a negotiation, particularly the leaders -- that they have criticised other people for even engaging with or writing to -- to write them and suggest that they're going to give a constitutional lesson, which by the way was absolutely incorrect, is quite stunning," Kerry said.
He said the letter "ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of American foreign policy."
"Formal treaties obviously require the advice and consent of the United States Senate. That's in the Constitution. But the vast majority of international arrangements and agreements do not," he said.
"Around the world today, we have all kinds of executive agreements that we deal with -- protection of our troops, the recent agreement we just did with Afghanistan; any number of noncontroversial or broadly supported foreign policy bills," he said.
"The executive agreement is a necessary tool of American foreign policy. It's been used by presidents of both parties for centuries, literally. And it is recognised and accepted by Congress from the earliest period of American history," the top American diplomat said in response to a question.
