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Freshman Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, the chief architect of the highly controversial letter sent by 47 Senators to the government of Iran last week, may give lip service to the notion that he made such a move because he is concerned about the direction of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy decisions, but some large campaign contributions may also explain his motives.

Looking closely at Cotton’s filings with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) during his 2014 race against incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Pryor, you cannot help but notice that a group called the?Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) gave a whopping $1 million to Cotton’s campaign as the race entered its final phase. ECI, it should be noted, was founded by neocon pundit Bill Kristol. Kristol and his family also contributed thousands of dollars individually to Cotton’s campaign.

Coincidence? Does a politician ever make a move without a motive, usually a motive driven by self-preservation and advancement? Does anyone think Cotton decided to write the semi-treasonous letter to Iran just because he’s trying to hone his credentials in the Senate? Or, more likely, did he do so at the behest of his far right benefactors?

In addition to the large contributions from ECI, Cotton’s political action committee, Arkansas Horizon, has also?taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from pro-Israel groups headed by people such as Paul Singer and Seth Klarman, both of who have been trying to scuttle the Administration’s dealings with Iran over its budding nuclear program. Cotton also received money from billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

So it would certainly appear that Tom Cotton is deeply in the debt of people and groups who can shovel tons of cash into his campaigns and his personal PAC. And by far the largest contributors all have their own agendas when it comes to American foreign policy. Is Tom Cotton merely their puppet?

As we learned from the Watergate scandal and the ensuing book All the President’s Men, if you want to know what’s behind every action taken by a political figure in the United States, all you have to do is follow the money.