We’re delighted to see Chuck Schumer taking The Post’s advice.
Only a few days after we took New York’s senior senator to task for his uncharacteristic reticence about the Obama administration’s headlong rush into a nuclear deal with Iran, Schumer is piping up.
On Tuesday, Schumer added his name to a letter to John Kerry signed by five other senators. In it, they warned the secretary of state against any deal that would give Tehran upfront concessions on sanctions without requiring “real, tangible actions” by Iran to roll back its nuclear-weapons program.
The letter minces few words. It reminds the administration its aim must be a “final settlement that prevents Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapons capability.” It expresses “no confidence” the terms of the deal under consideration would do that. And it urges Kerry to “be ever mindful of whom we are dealing with” — a nation whose leaders have financed and armed terrorists for decades and have routinely called for Israel’s destruction.
In signing this letter, Schumer joined Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). In other words, what we have here is a bipartisan group of senators expressing their worries about where President Obama’s foreign policy is taking us.
This bipartisan criticism of the White House’s foreign policy comes at a time when President Obama is also hearing Republican and Democratic criticism over his key domestic initiative, ObamaCare. As with the Senate letter on Iran, the growing complaints about ObamaCare show that men and women of both parties are losing confidence in the competence and credibility of this president.
Then again, given what’s happened to Americans who thought Obama had promised they could keep their insurance plans, maybe the Iran deal we should really be hoping for is one where President Obama publicly reassures Iran’s leaders that if they like their nuclear program, they can keep it.