Since when does the UN Security Council determine the security interests of the United States?
Funny. We thought that laws for the US were made by the US. Not so, it seems, under the current administration. Before giving the US Congress its say on the Iran deal — in accord with a law signed by the president — the president went to the Security Council to give it its say. This is not a mere procedural detail.
The president himself explained his move as an attempt to pressure Congress to approve the Iran deal by arguing that the whole world sees it as a good deal. Shouldn’t the terms of the deal themselves constitute the argument on its behalf? Is it the substance of the deal, or the UN, that should determine its fate? Even to ask the question shows the profound disrespect for the US Congress by this administration.
Look at the timing. The State Dept. did not even send the agreement to Congress until Sunday, July 19. The clock on Congress’ 60 days to review the agreement started then. Yet, already the next day, on Monday, July 20, the US had the UN Security Council vote on it. The administration did its best to usurp the importance of Congressional deliberations before they even began.
This is the view of both the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., are, respectively, the ranking member and the chair of the committee. Earlier, they sent a letter to President Obama, stating:
“The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, a bill which 98 Senators and 400 Representatives supported and you signed, established a 60-day period for Congress to consider the nuclear agreement. We are deeply concerned that your administration plans to enable the UN Security Council to vote on the agreement before the US Congress can do the same.
“Doing so would be contrary to your statement that ‘it’s important for the American people and Congress to get a full opportunity to review this deal . . . our national security policies are stronger and more effective when they are subject to the scrutiny and transparency that democracy demands.’
“We urge you to postpone the vote at the UN until after Congress consider this agreement.”
So much for the words of the president about transparency and the scrutiny of the American people.
So much for prioritizing Congress over the UN.
Funny. All those far out, paranoid, conspiracy-theorists who used to claim that under Obama the goal was to internationalize this country — that is, to make the final authority an international one, not the nation itself — may, it turns out, have been onto something. A decent respect for the processes of lawmaking in the country would — pardon the tautology — let these processes proceed as agreed upon by both Congress and the president.
This nuclear review act, it will be recalled, was a compromise.
That compromise, it will be recalled, was that the president would have to let Congress debate the deal and vote on it, but Congress could only vote the Iran deal up or down, not amend it. However, before Congress could vote on the deal or even debate it, the president went to the Security Council. This is contemptuous of Congress.
Contemptuous is the right word, given that the chances of Congress sustaining a presidential veto of any disapproval of the deal are next to nothing. It only takes 51 votes in the US Senate to disapprove of the deal, but it takes 67 votes to sustain a presidential veto.
What does this gratuitous rush to the Security Council say about the confidence of this administration in the terms of the deal? If its robust defense by both the president and the secretary of state reflected what they truly think about it, why the end run around Congress with an immediate turn to the UN Security Council? Shouldn’t the opinion of the likes of totalitarian China and dictatorial Russia be of less interest than the opinion of the representatives of the American people? If the deal is so good, shouldn’t it speak for itself?
Is the message that the American people are too ignorant to judge this deal appropriately?
Is there any buyer’s remorse here? Observe: The administration asserted that it could not throw into the mix of the negotiations the Americans imprisoned by Iran because, after all, this was strictly a nuclear negotiation. However, at the last minute Secretary Kerry agreed to Iran’s demand to lift the West’s embargo on conventional weapons for Iran.
Conventional is not nuclear. Yet, Kerry included conventional. Prisoners are not centrifuges. Yet, Kerry excluded prisoners. Maybe this unseemly inconsistency, along with others, such as the 24-day inspection provision, replacing the administration’s original demand for “anywhere, anytime” inspections, caused the diversion to the UN.
In any event, the preemptory contempt for Congress is unprecedented in our memory, under any American president, Democrat or Republican.
With all due respect for an international system founded on high ideals but now severely broken, it is only Congress — it should not be necessary to say — that should both set the tone and pass the laws that govern this country’s national security. No other body.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
