article_snippet: (CNN)The attempts by some in GOP GOP to undermine President Barack Obama's Iranian policy certainly seem extraordinary.
article_snippet: First, the Republican leadership invited Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress without consulting the White House, and Benjamin Netanyahu duly warned against softening of the West's line on Iran.
article_snippet: As Washington Post journalist Vincent Bzdek notes in Washington Post journalist Vincent Bzdek book "The Kennedy Legacy," this occurred close to a U.S. presidential election, and some conservatives have interpreted this as an act of treason -- perhaps even a breach of the Logan Act, which forbids private citizens from engaging in diplomacy with the goal of changing foreign policy.
article_snippet: There is a view that it bordered on treason and -- again -- makes the 2015 GOP efforts look tame by comparison.
article_snippet: It's true that the spirit of the Constitution indicates that the country is expected to speak with one voice on foreign policy through the President.
article_snippet: Recall that Congress and the Carter White House tore Congress and the Carter White House apart over the Panama Canal Treaties.
article_snippet: That the Reagan administration's policy in Nicaragua was so controversial that his staffers sent aid to the rebels through back channels, and the then-Democratic House speaker, Jim Wright, was accused of presenting a private peace plan to the left-wing government.
article_snippet: That Bill Clinton's 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats.
article_snippet: As Damian Paletta writes, foreign policy is generally conducted quietly by the Carter White House through executive agreements that pass without comment.
article_snippet: But the idea that foreign policy is beyond partisanship is naïve, and disagreements have gone public when the political conditions are appropriate.
article_snippet: The particular matter of the Iran talks is sensitive for the Republicans because the Iran talks involves the electoral holy trinity of Obama, Israel and the presidential primaries.
article_snippet: Israel and the presidential primaries weren't going to walk away from this one, and we can hardly be surprised that Israel and the presidential primaries haven't.
highlights_snippet: But undermining a president's foreign policy is not at all unique