Appearing on CNN just hours after announcing his pending resignation from the Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) summed up his reason for voting against the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of People with Disability (CRPD). The Tea Party lawmaker complained that members of the international body voted to upgrade Palestine’s status within its halls and explained that he couldn’t trust the U.N. or the treaty:

DEMINT: The United Nations cannot take an issue of that importance and carry it effectively around the world. They’re — This is the group that wants to make Palestine a state, they’re group that wants to regulate the Internet. If you look behind the scenes at the United Nations, this is not something we want to turn over, the rights of the disabled.

BLITZER: So this is more an expression of your disdain of the United Nations than it was necessarily the merits of the treaty?

DEMINT: Well, there was a small part related clearly to the disabled. But it was well over 100 pages of treaty, of legal language, that effects parental rights and other issues of importance.

Watch here:

The CRPD, based almost entirely around current United States law, was voted upon in the Senate on Monday. Unfortunately, the treaty fell just short of the two-thirds affirmative vote required to ratify it, despite lobbying by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former GOP Presidential candidate Bob Dole. Disabilities rights groups have widely criticized the 38 Republicans who voted in the negative, including DeMint.

Making DeMint’s response to Blitzer’s questions even more puzzling is that the United States also wants Palestine to become a state as well as does much of the rest of the world. While scolding the Palestinian push at the United Nations, it has been the policy of the U.S. to pursue a two-state solution for years. DeMint’s disagreement only highlights the absurdity of his “no” vote.

In addition to his loathing of the U.N.’s handling of Palestine, DeMint has never been a fan of international treaties in general, even those that benefit the United States. He did seem to take special umbrage at the CRPD, though, penning an op-ed in opposition and pushing falsehoods about its contents to conspiracy theory websites.

Further, ThinkProgress has counted the pages of the full text of the treaty as published online; it comes to 26, rather than the hundreds that DeMint claims.

The Council On American-Islamic Relations placed an open letter yesterday in the conservative Washington Times newspaper imploring Republicans to move away from the Islamophobic stance that has taken hold of the party. The letter, which was co-sponsored by several other Muslim-American groups, was titled, “GOP Asked to Reassess Its Relationship with American Muslims.” Here’s an excerpt:

“We repeatedly hear — primarily from Republicans — that our faith is a threat to the United States. Such things have been said about Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and other religions as well…Additionally, mainstream Republican candidates have questioned our loyalty and even threatened to undermine the Constitution in efforts to exclude us from the political process, all without any pushback from party leaders.”

The Republican Party has indeed embraced fringe attitudes toward Muslim-Americans. Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) 2011 hearings on the “Radicalization of American Muslims” were criticized for blaming “all Muslims for the crimes of a few” and demonizing “a whole broad base of human beings.” To make matters worse, since 2010, Republican-controlled legislatures in Kansas, Oklahoma and several other states have passed anti-Sharia laws, effectively legislating Islamophobia (a federal appellate court ruled Oklahoma’s ban unconstitutional). Then, this year, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) topped it all off by pushing an outrageous theory that the Muslim Brotherhood had a “deep penetration in the halls of our United States government,” including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s top aide.

A well-funded Islamphobic network looms in the background of the Republican assault on Muslim-Americans. CAP detailed the network in its 2011 report titled “Fear Inc.”:

“[T]his core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of “creeping Sharia,” Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians’ talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.“

It’s had an impact: only four percent of all Muslim-Americans polled by CAIR voted for Republican candidate Mitt Romney. In contrast, nearly 86 percent voted for President Obama. And it’s not like Muslim-Americans are dedicated Democrats, in fact, nearly forty-two percent of those CAIR polled said they were independent voters.

The CAIR letter notes that not all Republicans buy into bizarre, Islamophobic theories. Republican Governors like New Jersey’s Chris Christie, responding to Islamophobic critics of a judge he nominated, said, “this Sharia law business is crap.” Christie has also said that, “it’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.” Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Haslam made similar comments yesterday, defending a Muslim-American adviser he nominated earlier this year.

A bipartisan group of national security professionals today issued a new report on the efficacy of the current sanctions regime in place on Iran.

In the report, titled “Weighing Benefits and Costs of International Sanctions Against Iran,” the group does not come to a firm conclusion on whether the measures that have been leveled against the Islamic Republic are a net positive, leaving that to the reader of their observations. However, they do note that the current embargoes in place would be more effective if they were to focus in on fewer objectives.

At present, sanctions on Iran of both the national and international variety have a wide-range of policy goals behind them. The most recent rounds of international sanctions from the U.N. have been a result of Iran’s continuing nuclear research program. Those however are built upon both newer sanctions from the United States and other individual state actors and older actions dating back to the Iranian revolution, each with differing goals attached to them.

As the project notes, “sanctions alone are not a policy”:

If resolving the nuclear issue is now the most important objective of the sanctions regime, then sanctions strategies — and the negotiating sanctions associated with sanctions — should be assessed in terms of their effectiveness or likely effectiveness in achieving that objection.

In its findings, the Project presents the positive assessment that sanctions have the effect of demonstrating international support for U.S. policies, reassuring regional allies of the seriousness of U.S. concern, and deterring other states from pursuing nuclear weapons. In addition, the report highlights the sanctions’ weakening of Iran regionally and globally, through the deflating of their economy and relative military strength compared to other actors. Previous U.N. resolutions have implemented a ban on the import and export of military equipment, and the current sanctions have caused the Iranian currency to hit record lows.

The report does not, however, shy away from some of the potential costs that continuing sanctions may bring. Concerns include increased potential for U.S.-Iranian conflict in the Pesian Gulf region and a possible hardening of the long-term alienation between the two states. Also of particular concern to the Project are the humanitarian costs that sanctions bring with them. Iranians are currently suffering from a lack of pharmaceuticals and other items that, while not themselves under embargo, are increasingly difficult to come across for average citizens.

Published by The Iran Project — and signed by such foreign policy luminaries as Leslie Gelb, Paul Pillar, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, ret. Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Amb. Thomas Pickering — the report is a follow-up to a report earlier this year urging caution against launching military strikes against Iran.

Fox News White House correspondent Ed Henry said his network went a little overboard covering the terror attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. In an interview with the Associated Press, Henry said that Fox gave the story “proper emphasis,” but added that some of the network’s programs and commentators went beyond what was necessary:

Henry rejects the notion that he works off Fox marching orders in discussing the issue, but said, “I wouldn’t lie to you. I see that we’re covering Benghazi a lot, and I think that should be something that we’re asking about.”

He said other news outlets have under-covered the story, since four Americans were killed and there’s still some mystery about what the administration knew and when they knew about the attack.

“We’ve had the proper emphasis,” he said. “But I would not be so deluded to say that some of our shows, some of our commentators, have covered it more than it needed to be covered.”

Of course Henry is being generous. After the Sept. 11 Benghazi attacks up until the last week or so (after facts have silenced the Obama administration’s critics on this issue), Fox News has led an all-out blitz attacking the White House over its response, pushing conspiracy theories and baseless accusations that some of its own hosts had trouble with. And Henry himself participated in Fox’s politicization of the issue.

Fox recently vilified defense journalist Tom Ricks for noting this obvious point, one wonders what the network will do to Henry. (HT: Politico)