Not every Senate Republican signed on to Sen. Tom Cotton’s extraordinary letter to Iran’s leaders, and several of those who didn’t are fuming about the freshman senator’s Monday-morning foray into nuclear diplomacy.

Some of the seven dissenters told POLITICO they have doubts about Cotton’s move, saying there are more effective means to force President Barack Obama to address Congress’ concerns about the deal.


With Republicans needing significant Democratic support to achieve their goal of derailing the talks — or at least altering the emerging deal — some senators said Cotton’s effort could backfire by injecting excessive partisanship into the debate over how best to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said he was approached to sign the letter by Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, but he concluded it might set back his ultimate goal: veto-proof support for a bill he has sponsored requiring a congressional vote to approve or reject an Iran deal.

“I knew it was going to be only Republicans on [the letter]. I just don’t view that as where I need to be today,” Corker said in an interview. “My goal is to get 67 or more people on something that will affect the outcome.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) expressed doubt about her colleagues’ tactic of skirting the White House and trying to affect foreign policy by going directly to Tehran.

“It’s more appropriate for members of the Senate to give advice to the president, to Secretary Kerry and to the negotiators,” Collins said. “I don’t think that the ayatollah is going to be particularly convinced by a letter from members of the Senate, even one signed by a number of my distinguished and high ranking colleagues.”

Indeed, the response from Tehran was the equivalent of an eye-roll, with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif concluding the letter “has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy.”

Meanwhile some Democrats warned that Republicans risked alienating some of the dozen or so Democrats who have pledged support for two GOP measures that could blow up the fragile talks. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who has not signed on to either a sanctions bill or to one allowing Congress to reject a deal with Iran, shook his head and sighed audibly when asked about the letter.

“It really makes it difficult. There was a time in Congress where politics stopped at the water’s edge on foreign policy. We gave the president whatever he needed to do his best. We could debate it, disagree with it,” said Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat. “Now I’m afraid we’ve reached a level here with that letter. It’s just, I could not think of a more overt effort to jeopardize peace negotiations.”

For his part, Obama accused the lawmakers who signed the letter of “wanting to make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran.”

“It’s an unusual coalition,” Obama said in brief remarks in the Oval Office. “I think what we’re going to focus on right now is actually seeing whether we can get a deal or not. And once we do — if we do — then we’ll be able to make the case to the American people, and I’m confident we’ll be able to implement it.”

Vice President Joe Biden issued his own strongly worded statement late Monday, saying the letter “is beneath the dignity of an institution I revere.”

“In 36 years in the United States Senate,” Biden said, “I cannot recall another instance in which senators wrote directly to advise another country — much less a longtime foreign adversary — that the president does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them.”

The letter, organized by Cotton and signed by 47 Senate Republicans, offered Iranian leaders a primer on the U.S. Constitution and warned that any nuclear deal with Obama but not approved by the Senate could last less than two years, when a new president takes over.

“We’re heading in a really bad direction,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of GOP leadership. “I’m going to do whatever I can do to slow down what I think is a bad deal.”

Democratic support is essential for Corker and other Republicans seeking to build veto-proof majorities for two bills they call essential to preventing a “bad” Iran nuclear deal.

Cotton insisted in a CNN interview on Monday afternoon that Democrats had been asked to sign on to the partisan letter, though a Democratic Senate source closely watching Congress’s Iran machinations first learned of the Cotton letter in a news story on Monday morning.

Corker’s bill would require an up-or-down vote by Congress on any deal that Obama strikes with Iran — and although a “no” vote would not bind Obama and bring down a nuclear deal, it would restrict Obama’s ability to waive economic sanctions on Iran.

The other measure, sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), would require new sanctions on Iran should Tehran leave the negotiations or violate its current agreements with the U.S. and its five negotiating partners: Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain.

Both measures are close to the 67 Senate votes needed to override the vetoes President Obama has threatened. The White House has warned that congressional interference could blow up the talks and lead to a possible military confrontation with Iran.

The perception of partisanship has caused Senate Democrats to back away from GOP measures in the past. Last week, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sought to fast-track Corker’s bill, 10 Democrats who have supported one or both of the Iran measures revolted at what they called an effort to “score partisan political points, rather than pursue a substantive strategy to counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

The American Israel Political Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, has urged members of Congress in the past to maintain a bipartisan front, fearing that partisanship could undermine the goal of pressuring Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Asked about the letter Monday, Menendez said: “You saw that it was a partisan letter. Tells you everything about it.”

Republicans’ defense of the letter is based on both the constitutional balance between the White House and the Capitol and the particulars of the agreement that world powers are pursuing with Iran.

But Obama officials say their agreement with Iran will be unlike a permanent treaty, which requires Senate ratification. In part that is because treaties typically last in perpetuity, whereas any deal with Iran would endure for a limited amount of time, probably 10 to 15 years.

Moreover, Obama won’t need Congress if he wants to cut a significant deal with Iran. He can suspend many of the sanctions the U.S. has imposed through his executive authority for as long as two years, and direct the U.S. to approve United Nations resolutions relaxing international sanctions on Iran.

But a vote of Congress would be needed to permanently lift crucial sanctions, including ones that have crippled Tehran’s financial sector. And Republican members of Congress say they have been shut out, left with little choice other than to alert the Iranians that, though they appear powerless at this moment, ultimately Capitol Hill’s support will be necessary for any deal Iran forges with diplomats.

“I worry about the president’s foreign policy. I respect the office and I respect the responsibility the president has. And I also respect what the Congress has to do,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). “When you have an administration that appears to be going toward a goal of making a deal and you don’t have any understanding of what that deal is and once it’s made you have no input on it? I think it’s a dangerous situation.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said he’d expressed his views on Iran by signing onto Corker’s bill but declined to criticize the Cotton letter’s tone even though he was absent from its signers. Asked if he’d left his name off that letter because it was inappropriate, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) replied: “I’m not saying that. I just decided not to sign it.” (“I just didn’t think it was appropriate,” Flake told The Arizona Republic in a separate interview.)

Some sympathetic observers of the nuclear talks saw the GOP threat to undo any deal Obama strikes with Iran as overblown. Ilan Goldenberg, a former Obama Pentagon and State Department official now at the Center for a New American Security, likened the GOP’s role to its opposition to Obamacare: “There will be all kinds of threats to unravel the agreement.”

And given that Obama can waive many sanctions for up to two years, Goldenberg added: “By the time any president goes to Congress for final removal of the sanctions, an agreement will be so far along in implementation and the whole world will be so committed to the process that it will be very hard for any Congress to sabotage it.”

The missive to a hostile foreign capital directly challenging a sitting president letter shocked many longtime foreign policy analysts.

“I think that’s just at an entirely new level and I am really quite astounded,” said James Goldgeier, dean of the School of International Service at American University.

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.