Wednesday, May 6, 2015
The Congressional Review Bill Will not Stop the Obama-Iran Nuclear Deal
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, cleared the way yesterday for a vote on the bill that would give Congress the power to review any international nuclear agreement with Iran. Passage of the cloture motion filed by McConnell would end debate on amendments meant to impose more conditions on Teheran. Both Democrats and Republicans said they expected the Iran Nuclear Review Act would pass with strong support in the vote scheduled for Thursday -- 60 votes are needed for passage, requiring some Senate Democrat support. Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and author of the bill, told reporters : "If we get to the final vote without additional blowups between now and then, I think it's going to be overwhelmingly supportive," Corker made a presentation to his fellow Republican Senators at a closed-door lunch meeting yesterday, urging them to support the measure without major changes. A dispute among Republican Senators over amendments last week left Senate leaders scrambling to find a way to move forward with the legislation. At least 67 amendments to the bill had been offered, all by Republicans. Many would have killed the bill by alienating too many Democrats for it to pass or, if it did pass, provoking a veto by President Obama. One proposed amendment, from Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, would have required certification that Iran's leaders have publicly accepted Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state - a sure nuclear deal killer. ~~~~~ As written, the legislation would block Obama from waiving congressional sanctions for at least 30 days while lawmakers review any final deal the US and the other P5+1 nations reach with Iran. It also would stipulate that if Senators disapprove the deal, Obama would lose the current authority he holds to waive certain economic penalties Congress has imposed on Iran. Obama has said he will sign it as written, but the White House warns that he will reconsider if the measure is substantially changed through amendments. This week's concessions by Republicans in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee cut the review period to 30 days from the original 60 days and removed a requirement that Obama certify that Iran is not supporting terrorism against the United States. The bill requires the administration to send Congress any accord within five days of its conclusion. It bars the White House from easing sanctions imposed by Congress for at least 30 days after that, but Obama could unilaterally ease sanctions if Congress takes no action. And if the Senate votes to disapprove the deal, President Obama could veto it, requiring a 2/3 Senate vote to override the veto -- meaning that Obama would need only 34 votes supporting his veto to maintain it. This would be relatively easy. ~~~~~ It was on mid-April that, after months of denying that Congress has any role to play in the Iran deal, President Obama conceded that Congress will have the power to review a nuclear deal with Iran, reluctantly giving in to pressure from Republicans and some in his own party after they crafted a rare bipartisan compromise demanding a voice. The role for the Republican-controlled Congress injects a new element of uncertainty into the final stages of negotiations between major powers and Iran aimed at curbing Teheran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Since a preliminary agreement was reached in Switzerland on April 2, the White House had stepped up its lobbying to persuade Democratic Senators not to support the bipartisan bill that would give Congress oversight of a final deal, saying it could threaten what Obama hopes will be a legacy-defining foreign-policy achievement. Both US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union are confident that the deal will be achieved, and Germany and the EU are optimistic that the congressional bill would not prevent an agreement. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it will take Iran some time to complete preliminary actions if the deal is signed, such as shutting down and disconnecting some of its centrifuges that can produce fissile material for an atomic bomb. Any eventual nuclear agreement could be written with its implementation scheduled to begin, say, 60 days later, giving Iran time to prepare its nuclear actions and allowing the US congressional review to be completed. If Congress should vote to reject the Iran deal, Obama still has the ability to veto it, and he would only need to secure 34 votes in the Senate to sustain his veto and prevail. Since 2010, Congress has passed "national security" waivers on Iran sanction bills, allowing Obama to decide alone which congressional sanctions to waive. Senator Corker, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said the President has a free hand right now to agree to anything and go directly to the UN without Congress ever knowing what the President has agreed to. Corker believes the Iranian negotiators may not know what's going on concerning military nuclear development and facilities because they say they could pass lie detector tests proving that Iran is not working on a nuclear bomb. But it is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that manages the Iranian military nuclear program and Corker says that neither Congress nor the President have access to them : "They are, we know, the group that directs Iran's foreign terrorist and military activities." Senator Ben Cardin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the Corker-Cardin bill will give America greater ability to check that Iran is abiding by the terms of any agreement because "we don't trust Iran." Former Democrat Senator Jim Webb -- who was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- says that under the US Constitution there can be no international agreement without the full consent of Congress, whether with Iran or on climate change or anything else. And Webb says that regarding the Iran deal, Congress must retain its oversight function. But, we have a watered-down compromise bill giving Congress the power to review any international nuclear agreement with Iran. It is unable to stop the Iran deal except by overriding an Obama veto. It may well be the best compromise Majority Leader McConnell could ptoduce, but it leaves Iran in the catbird seat, waiting out the theatre being acted out by the US Senate, ready to pounce afterward, free to pursue a toothless agreement that will inevitably lead to a nuclear Iran. Bravo, President Obama, on your new-found legacy.
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Americans (at least those paying any attention) know that Barack Obama routinely lies to fulfill the one promise he has not broken: to “fundamentally transform America.” But what he has done to empower Iran and pave its way to develop nuclear weapons trumps even that boastful claim: Obama wants to, and probably will, fundamentally transform the world.
ReplyDeleteWhen he campaigned in 2008 Barack Obama dismissed concerns over Iran: it is just a “tiny” country that doesn’t pose a threat to us the way the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. This was absurd.
Obama’s political handlers quickly realized the gaffe about Iran in 2008 had to be erased from memory. Barack Obama shifted his tone: declaring he would do “everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.” He periodically repeated this promise when he thought it could pay political benefits to him. Barack Obama, from the inception of his presidency, pursued “détente” with Iran.
Obama is using some of the tactics employed to pass ObamaCare to pass an Iran deal. Among those tactics is a resolute refusal to allow Congressmen (as well as the rest of America) to know any details of the deal. Shades of “have to pass the bill to know what is in it” -- this, from the administration that declared it would be the most transparent in history. The deal with the mullahs would be presented as a fait accompli.
So the Obama Doctrine has been uncovered and can be summarized in one word: deceive.
When client governments are trying to scam the U.S. out of additional support, they have every incentive to profess their alarm at being “neglected” or “abandoned” by their patron. That is why such complaints from client governments should always be greeted with skepticism, and they should force us to ask whether the interests of our clients and our own interests are actually aligned on the issue in question.
ReplyDeleteIf the Saudis for instance or any other Gulf states are opposed to a nuclear deal with Iran, that does not mean that the U.S. needs to be bending over backwards to assuage their doubts. Furthermore, if regional clients want to throw a fit over a major U.S. diplomatic initiative, the right answer is not to find ways to bribe them into silence or compliance. It is rather to prove to them that their hostility to U.S. goals comes at a price in their relationship with the U.S. Clients are certainly not obliged to endorse all U.S. policies, but they shouldn’t be rewarded for actively seeking to undermine them.
There is a related problem that U.S. policymakers have so often overstated the interests that the U.S. has in various parts of the world, especially the Near East, that they have tricked themselves into believing that the U.S. needs its clients more than they need U.S. support. The U.S. goes to great lengths to placate and satisfy governments that contribute little or nothing to making the U.S. more secure. If our policymakers were less inclined to perceive “vital” interests everywhere, they would be less inclined to indulge clients in their attempted extortion when our interests and theirs diverge.
Besides Obama , both Houses of Congress are equally responsible for such irresponsible action towards client governments. And Congress is guilty of the same action towards Obama who does not have the best interests of the United States in mind.
The recently announced ‘framework’ for a deal with Iran over their nuclear program is nothing but a list of concessions by the United States.
ReplyDeleteThe kindest things that can be said for Obama and his administration is that they didn't know what they were doing ... The harshest criticism thing that can be said of Obama and his administration is that they do know what they are doing.
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