| I can certainly understand congresses concerns over the issue. IMO this should be considered a treaty and thus would require the approval of the Senate anyway. But this does not appear to be a clear cut issue. I think this might be because this involves the military and since the executive branch is considered to be the commander and chief that maybe he can sign something that would not need Senate approval.
In that since Congress has taken the only step they have to counter that approach - restrict funding. This basically makes any agreement meaningless until congress approves it anyway.
I don't really agree with members of congress interfering in negotiations by going directly to the party the US is in negotiations with. Congress has made it pretty clear already that what ever gets signed will have to get their approval one way or the other anyway.
I might dig around a bit more and find out why this agreement may or may not be considered a treaty - from a legal standpoint. The congressional response touched upon this a bit. And it seems pretty clear regardless of the treaty issue that constitutionally the president is the one that should be negotiating this deal. Generally speaking this would also mean he needs to "consult" with at least the Senate - but consultation does not mean that anyone from congress has to be directly involved in the negotiations.
There has been quite a bit of a power struggle going on over the powers of the executive vs the legislative branches of government as of late. And generally speaking the executive seems to have been winning. Many times when I think they should not. But in this case I think the power to negotiate this deal is clearly an executive power, a power that should eventually require at a minimum Senate approval of any agreement, but one that should be handled on the front lines directly be the executive branch (without meddling between anyone in the legislative branch and the party the US is negotiating with).
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"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion" - Steven Weinberg |