The fight between the White House and Congress over nuclear talks with Iran took a new turn Thursday with a leading senator demanding President Obama clarify whether he would seek U.N. Security Council endorsement of a deal he has refused to submit to lawmakers for their approval.
“Enabling the United Nations to consider an agreement or portions of it, while simultaneously threatening to veto legislation that would enable Congress to do the same, is a direct affront to the American people and seeks to undermine Congress’s appropriate role,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker wrote.
The question is significant, because the deal with Iran is being negotiated as an executive agreement that is nonbinding under international law. A U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing it would change that, however, even if Congress does not weigh in.
“At that point, depending on the language of the resolution, the United States could have an international legal obligation not to impose sanctions on a compliant Iran. Importantly, such an international legal obligation can persist far beyond President Obama’s term,” Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith wrote Thursday in his Lawfare blog.
“In other words, a Security Council resolution could mean that the next president can reimpose congressional sanctions only by violating international law.”
Corker, a Tennessee Republican, is co-sponsor with Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey of a bill that would require Obama to submit any deal to Congress for approval and limit his ability to waive U.S. sanctions unless the deal is approved. Obama has threatened to veto the bill.
Relief from U.S. and international sanctions is central to Iran’s demands in talks with the “P5+1” group — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — which resume Sunday in Lausanne, Switzerland.
It’s also central to the dispute between the president, who has said he would not submit the deal to Congress for approval, and lawmakers who insist they must have a voice, not the least because U.S. sanctions against Iran have been enacted into law, some over Obama’s veto.
“We’re going to insist on having a say on sanctions we created before you negotiate their relief,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Obama in a Senate floor speech. “We’re not going to be silent. We’re going to have a say, going to have a vote.”
Obama’s snub of Congress has brought many Democrats on board with Corker’s efforts, in spite of their anger over an open letter to Iran’s leaders released Monday by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., warning that any deal not approved by Congress may not survive Obama’s presidency. The letter, signed by 47 Senate Republicans, was seen by Democrats as an unnecessary partisan intrusion into the process.
Corker was one of seven Republican senators who did not sign the letter, saying he was focused on building a veto-proof majority for his legislation.
Corker’s most recent blast at Obama was prompted by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s response to Cotton’s letter. In a statement Monday from Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Zarif said: “If the current negotiation with P5+1 result in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the U.S., but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.”
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki would not confirm whether the P5+1 group plans to submit any deal to the Security Council.
“I’m not going to prejudge what step would be taken or wouldn’t be taken,” she said.
