Senate Republican leadership will attempt to vote on the Obama administration’s Iran deal under the provisions of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, co-authored by Senators Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and Ben Cardin (D., Md.), even though President Obama hasn’t complied with the statute. The Senate should follow the House’s lead and reconsider. The president’s flagrant disregard of the act has rendered Corker-Cardin moot, and Congress should express the strongest possible disapproval — of the president’s deal, and of the lawlessness that has accompanied it.
The Corker-Cardin legislation was always an imperfect response to an administration bent on forcing its will on the Iran deal. But, the thinking went, at least it would make the administration present the deal to Congress and at least it would make members of Congress go on the record and vote. It turns out that this was wrong on both counts.
On the latter, Senate Democrats have enough votes to filibuster the Senate resolution of disapproval. Any hope that public opinion breaking strongly against the deal would pressure Democrats to vote against Obama and endanger his foremost foreign-policy legacy project has proven unrealistic, as Democrats like House minority whip Steny Hoyer blast the merits of the deal — in statements announcing their support.
And Corker-Cardin hasn’t even forced full disclosure of the deal. As David Rivkin and our own Andy McCarthy have persuasively argued, the transparency requirements of the Corker-Cardin legislation are indisputable, and the Obama administration has failed to meet them. According to the legislation, the entire deal, “including annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements . . . and any related agreements,” was to be submitted to Congress within five days of the finalized agreement.
The president has failed to comply with the terms of the law he signed, and Congress should not proceed as if he had complied.
That July 19 deadline is long past, and news of secret side deals between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency continues to emerge. The administration has tried to argue that these agreements are immaterial. This is irrelevant — the statute still requires disclosure — and false. Reports make clear that these deals pertain directly to the enforcement-and-inspection regime that is the heart of the Iran deal. It is clear that the administration refuses to release the full text of the agreement simply because its terms would prove embarrassing.
So the president has failed to comply with the terms of the law he signed, and Congress should not proceed as if he had complied. Republican leaders in both House and Senate have taken it for granted that Corker-Cardin’s 60-day window for congressional review has been in effect, and that September 17 is the deadline for a vote. But because the Obama administration failed to provide all materials, Congress is under no such obligation.
#share#On Wednesday, members of the House rightly pressed this argument with House Republican leadership, and a vote on the deal under Corker-Cardin, scheduled for Friday, is likely to be replaced with three resolutions. The first, authored by Representative Peter Roskam (R., Ill.), who has been stalwart on this question, would declare that President Obama violated Corker-Cardin. The second would bar President Obama’s suspending sanctions against Iran.
The third will be a resolution to “approve” the Iran deal, which would force House Democrats onto the record and of course fail. This effort will force members to state their position on the Iran deal while also protesting the president’s abject disregard of statutory law. The Senate should follow suit.
#related#These votes will have no practical effect in the short term. The president can continue to pursue his executive agreement, and, barring decisive congressional action, he can waive sanctions, which he has broad statutory discretion to do. But the votes will set the table for continued opposition to the deal. The public is strongly against the deal and the congressional opposition lends this view an imprimatur. A concerted public effort, after this vote, to deny the deal legitimacy will create uncertainty abroad, and perhaps discourage foreign nations from doing business with Iran while encouraging Israel and the Gulf Arab states to understand that the American government, as opposed to the Obama administration, has not embraced a policy of surrender. Diminished legitimacy in the eyes of foreign nations will make it easier for a Republican president to dismantle the agreement.
Republicans cannot stop President Obama from making a non-binding executive agreement with Iran, and they cannot stop other nations from taking harmful steps (like dropping sanctions and engaging in commerce and military sales with Iran) in reliance on it. But they can make it clear that the current administration owns it, and that, should a Republican win the White House, it will not survive past January 19, 2017.