WarSclerotic

The Iran Nuclear Review Amendment Act (the Corker-Menendez bill) passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 19-0. Amendments and debate on the bill will get underway next week.

According to a fact sheet provided by the bill’s floor managers, the bill would require the president to submit to Congress any final Iran deal along with all related documents, including specifics on verification and compliance.

Without it, there would be no assurance President Obama would submit the deal (an “executive agreement” he calls it) to Congress and there would be no way for Congress to see the entire deal and give up-or-down approval. Moreover, the bill would prevent the president under existing waiver authority from having the ability to suspend sanctions while Congress reviews the agreement.

If the final deal is submitted before July 10 (longer if submitted after July 10), Congress will have 30 days to review it and then 12 days after a potential veto to override it. The bill gives Congress the opportunity to enact a joint resolution of disapproval that would permanently prevent the president from waiving or suspending the congressional sanctions.

In addition, the president would have to certify every 90 days if the final deal goes into effect that Iran is complying and, if it is not, Congress would have an expedited process to put sanctions back into place. There are also new requirements for reporting on Iran’s direct and indirect support for terrorism, human rights violations and ballistic missile testing.

So why are some conservatives so upset with it, calling it “toothless” while the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is for it? Is this another trick to sucker conservatives?

Here is what is going on. Without the bill, Obama — as he let on after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and 46 other senators sent their letter — would have refused to handle a final deal like a treaty, would have never gone to Congress, and would have used executive authority to suspend sanctions and then hoped the next president and Congress would have no choice but to comply and permanently lift sanctions. There would be no mechanism for preventing the president from implementing during the rest of his term a sweetheart deal with Iran, provided he could get Iran to say yes.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told me by phone this afternoon, “We already gave the president by national security waivers carte blanche to lift [the sanctions].” He explained that it “would be really nice” if this were to be considered a treaty, “but he already has the ability to go to the United Nations. He has [without the bill] no obligation whatsoever to give us any details before going to the U.N.” What the bill does is take some of the power Congress previously gave him back and stop him from lifting sanctions while Congress considers a deal. This is quite apart from congressional power over U.S. statutory sanctions, which Congress retains.

Conservatives, who need to learn to take “yes” for an answer, complain that it requires a two-thirds vote to override the president, rather than putting the onus on Obama to get two-thirds for ratification. Sorry, that’s not the fault of the bill; Obama won’t call it a treaty. Without the bill (see above) the Congress gets no control, no input. Moreover, conservatives should remember there is an ace in the hole that this bill does not relinquish: To get permanent sanctions relief, Congress (with a filibuster-proof Senate majority) must still vote to lift sanctions. In other words, the bill gives Congress some measure of control over Obama for the rest of his term while keeping its statutory sanction power in place. As Corker put it, “Right now we’re in the peanut gallery.” Indeed, under the Joint Plan of Action, it took months for Congress to find out what was in the deal.

Maybe the unanimous vote spooked some conservatives. Maybe they got conned by the White House spin that the bill is fine. But until the morning of the committee hearing, the White House was fighting tooth-and-nail against the bill, only relenting when it saw the other side had a two-thirds majority. On the day of the committee vote, Secretary of State John Kerry came to the Hill at 10:30 a.m. to brief the Senate, arguing against the bill. Under questioning from Corker at 11:30 a.m., he was still arguing against it. At 12:45 p.m., Denis McDonough, White House chief of staff, came to the Hill to plead with Democrats. “They were going to get hit with a freight train,” Corker told me. Only then did the White House decide to live with the result, one the president, the secretary of state and the chief of staff had all vigorously argued would make a deal impossible, destroy presidential authority and do other dastardly things. Some lawmakers described Kerry and the White House as “livid” over the loss.

Conservatives claim the GOP floor leadership does not want and will not allow any amendment. Well, that’s flat wrong. Per the new rules of the Senate, there will be full debate and many, many amendments. Votes on those will begin Tuesday. Some of those will get plenty of support. If they get to 60 votes (and hopefully 67 to show the veto-override majority is solid), they get to be part of the bill. Don’t allow Fordow to remain in a final version. Require Iran to recognize Israel. These are all great ideas. The only thing the backers need are the votes.

So instead of insisting falsely that the current bill is useless, maybe critics should work on rounding up 67 votes for some of the ideas. The good news is that Democrats will be forced to vote on many items that seem like no-brainers. That may mean they get shamed into voting for some, although I am continually amazed at the discipline of Democrats.

Two other considerations have not been widely discussed. First, the certification requirement that the president must deliver every 90 days gives the next president the perfect way to pull out of the deal if Iran is not co-operating or there is any hint of cheating. What would otherwise be a Herculean political task is in effect tee-ed up by the bill. Second, it is a fact of political life that you build on success, not defeat. If a bad deal is to be stopped, it will not be because the White House snatches victory from the jaws of defeat and Corker-Menendez goes down because of Republican infighting. That would be a dream scenario for the president. Only if Congress can manage with a huge bipartisan majority to do something that has never been done — pull back executive waiver authority previously granted — can Congress seize the momentum and begin to put the brakes on a rush to a rotten and dangerous deal. As Corker says, “We will build on that. Absolutely. We are not going away.” But first they have to win.