Republicans love the Constitution to death, so surely they would be shocked to learn that the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, at a time when it was staffed with members who had a living memory of the drafting of the constitution, flatly rejected today's GOP's theory of Senate foreign policy.
'The President is the constitutional representative of the United States with regard to foreign nations. He manages our concerns with foreign nations and must necessarily be most competent to determine when, how, and upon what subjects negotiation may be urged with the greatest prospect of success. For his conduct he is responsible to the Constitution. The committee considers this responsibility the surest pledge for the faithful discharge of his duty. They think the interference of the Senate in the direction of foreign negotiations calculated to diminish that responsibility and thereby to impair the best security for the national safety. The nature of transactions with foreign nations, moreover, requires caution and unity of design, and their success frequently depends on secrecy and dispatch.' -Report of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, February 15, 1816 (8 U.S.Sen.Reports Comm. on Foreign Relations, p. 24).
Sometimes a document that is hundreds of years old seems very dated because it dwells on issues which were long since consigned to the realm of history. But this missive could have been written in direct response to the Republican strategy of interference in the President's ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.
"The president must necessarily be the most competent": Yeah, the President, not you, Mr. Cotton.
"to determine when, how, and upon what subjects negotiation may be urged with the greatest prospect of success." Sorry, Tom Cotton and Binyamin Netanyahu, that excludes you from this element of the process!
"The interference of the Senate in the direction of foreign negotiations calculated to diminish that responsibility and thereby to impair the best security for the national safety."
Why are Tom Cotton and 46 other Senators trying to impair our security?
"The nature of transactions with foreign nations, moreover, requires caution and unity of design, and their success frequently depends on secrecy and dispatch."
Unity of design, caution, secrecy, dispatch, Senators sending a letter to the Ayatollah in the midst of negotations, which one of these does not fit?