President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran is hated by Israelis, evangelical Christians, and the vast majority of Republican voters. Mike Huckabee has warned it will foment a second, unthinkable Holocaust on the nation of Israel. Yet under the terms of a bill negotiated by Republican senators, it may become law with as few as one-third of the Senate voting in favor.
But one candidate may have found the solution to stopping the deal dead in its tracks.
As it turned out, Obama may have cheated on the terms of the agreement even before the Iranians got the chance.
Under the Corker-Cardin bill, known as the “Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act,” the Obama administration was duty bound to give Congress all “annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements, implementing materials, documents and guidance, technical or other understandings and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.”
Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ariz., revealed in July that there were numerous side agreements Congress never laid eyes on.
“That we are only now discovering that parts of this dangerous agreement are being kept secret begs the question of what other elements may also be secret and entirely free from public scrutiny,” Cotton said.
“The facts are clear,” Sen. Rick Santorum, a 2016 Republican presidential hopeful, said this week. “By not submitting his Iranian agreement and all related materials to Congress, President Obama has made the terms of Corker-Cardin moot.”
“Majority Leader McConnell should immediately call for a vote on the ratification of the Iran deal, treating it as a treaty as outlined in the Constitution,” he said.
Since Obama broke his own law, the law should be treated like a treaty—which requires Obama to marshal two-thirds of the U.S. Senate in favor of the agreement’s terms. As of this writing, Obama has 41. In a Republican-controlled Senate, the threshold is unattainable.
Even many Democrats—including, most recently, pro-life Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia—say the agreement is flawed beyond any acceptable level.
“It is time for the Republican Senate to use their constitutional authority, stand up as an equal branch of government, and vote down this threat to global security,” Santorum said.
