A group of 33 Senate Republicans are warning that they will try to block a revival of the Iran nuclear deal if President Biden doesn’t present the terms for the agreement to Congress for review and approval.
Led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Republicans said in a letter to Biden that the president is required by a law passed in 2015 to present Congress with any new “agreement” made with Iran for a 60-day review period. Under the law, Congress could pass a resolution of disapproval that can block the nuclear deal.
If Biden doesn’t submit the agreement to Congress, the Republicans didn’t specify how they would try to block the deal. But the letter pointed out that since the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, isn’t a treaty, it could be torn up by the next administration if a Republican is elected in 2024.
“Any agreement related to Iran’s nuclear program which is not a treaty ratified by the Senate is subject to being reversed, and indeed will likely be torn up in the opening days of the next Presidential administration, as early as January 2025,” the letter reads.
Any nuclear agreement with Iran would never get the two-thirds approval needed in the Senate to become a treaty since virtually all Republicans and some Democrats would oppose it. This has posed a challenge for the US and Iran’s negotiations.
Tehran wants guarantees that the US won’t withdraw from the JCPOA again if it is revived. But President Biden cannot promise that future administrations will stay in the agreement. In earlier negotiations, the previous Iranian government settled for a guarantee that Biden wouldn’t leave the JCPOA during his term, but Biden refused to make the vow.
The JCPOA negotiations in Vienna resumed on Tuesday. Going into the talks, the State Department warned time is running out, but also said an agreement is “in sight.” Iranian officials said progress depends on whether or not the US is willing to lift the necessary sanctions.
So once again: “That ain’t gonna happen.” i.e., the JCPOA is dead. And Biden knew that when he went into the negotiations. The whole negotiations thing was a scam to make it look like he was adhering to his campaign promises and in the meantime use them to try impose other conditions on Iran – which he also knew Iran would never accept.
Total scam.
As the GOP letter says, they acknowledge they have no power to block the deal while Biden is in power, only that the next President can reverse it once more on a whim.
“Any agreement related to Iran’s nuclear program which is not a treaty ratified by the Senate is subject to being reversed, and indeed will likely be torn up in the opening days of the next Presidential administration, as early as January 2025,” the letter reads.
“Any nuclear agreement with Iran would never get the two-thirds approval
needed in the Senate to become a treaty since virtually all Republicans
and some Democrats would oppose it.”
Miss that? I would agree that a Republican block is not guaranteed without Dems – but I do agree that there will be Dems who support blocking it. Don’t forget Israeli influence in Congress – the famous “we can get 60 Senators for something written on the back of a napkin” line.
And it’s irrelevant anyway because the next President is almost certainly going to be Republican (unless they run Trump again, which is not certain.) And even if it’s a Democrat, almost certainly they’ll reverse it.
“Hope is not a plan”, as they say.
Actually, it was 70.
“AIPAC famously can get 70 Senators’ signatures on a napkin inside of a day, as Goldberg himself reported. AIPAC got 76 Senate signatures on this letter to Obama rebuking his stance on Israel back in the spring of last year.”
My bad. Ten more corrupt Senators. I gave them too much credit. 🙂
Yes, but the jcpoa was never a senate ratified treaty but was in effect until trump pulled out.
I suspect the Repugs are going to try to change that – if it ever gets that far.
The JCPOA was an obligation UNDER a Senate-ratified treaty.
Trump didn’t “pull out of” the JCPOA, he just violated it. The only way to “pull out of” the JCPOA would be to “pull out of” the United Nations.
I’m not familiar with the case law regarding the nature of America’s obligations under the UN Participation Act, but I would suspect the right wing-seized federal judiciary is going to peck away at it in the coming years, giving cover to those in the Senate who say they must approve individual agreements like the JCPOA.
Well, that’s just it.
It’s not the Senate MUST approve agreements like the JCPOA.
It’s that the Senate pre-emptively approved all UN Security Council resolutions in 1945, in a binding way that makes those resolutions co-equal with the Constitution of the United States, per the procedure outlined in that same Constitution.
If the US doesn’t want to be bound by UN Security Council resolutions, it has two options:
1) Use its Security Council veto to stop those resolutions from passing; or
2) Withdraw from the United Nations.
i hear you. the far right judiciary will not be caring. In any event, as much as I want multilateralism I do not think it is a particularly strong constitutional argument to say the Senate legitimately pre-approved all UNSC-approved agreements. The judiciary will surely take a similar position, whether gradually or drastically, but with far more conviction and, of course, impact.
33 GOP Senators should be bought a one way ticket to Israel, the country to which they are truly loyal.
I’d pay to see that!
Along with the other senators that if given their choice would agree with those 33 republicans. I’d say that would be around 90.
“Any nuclear agreement with Iran would never get the two-thirds approval needed in the Senate to become a treaty since virtually all Republicans and some Democrats would oppose it.”
There it is again. Please name one democrat that has been a full-throated supporter of the JCPOA.
Yes, it’s about time that the country adhered to the US Constitution that limits the authority of the president, beyond the autocratic experiences lately.
“He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,
to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”
The JCPOA has been called an “agreement” as a ruse to give the president this autocratic power, but it is actually a treaty, a formal agreement between two or more states in reference to peace, alliance, commerce, or other international relations, subject to the advice and consent of the senate, two-thirds concurring.
So good on the repubs for stopping this JCPOA travesty of limiting Iran sovereignty, while also limiting US presidential executive privilege. The US has blah-blahed a lot about overseas autocracies while in the US it’s been, oh that’s just executive privilege. Enough of that, and you go, Iran. China and Russia are there for you.
re: Russia, China, Iran
..from the hard-right FDD
China, Russia, and Iran Hold Trilateral Naval Drill
“He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,
to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”
Which is precisely what happened on July 28, 1945 when Truman recommended, and the US Senate ratified, the UN Charter.
Which binds all member states to abide by UN Security Council Resolutions.
Which is what the JCPOA is.
The UNSC decision, expressed in the Resolution, was to endorse (declare approval of) the JCPOA. The UNSC did not itself decide on measures under Article 41.
Here is a prescient statement by a prominent lawyer* in 2015:
And in fact that is what is happening to this unconstitutional action by President Obama, who needed something seemingly positive on foreign affairs in his presidential library, as a distraction from all his other foreign failures especially wars. It was “the plan all along.”
*Jack Goldsmith is the Learned Hand Professor at Harvard Law School, co-founder of Lawfare, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
The JCPOA is an agreement between 7 countries ratified at the UN. If Washington cannot honor the agreement they should stop interfering with the other parties. As for voting in Congress well AIPAC won’t allow it.