Whoops.
Even though the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act most likely will pass the Senate by a large majority, the superhawks, pushed by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and president-wannabe Marco Rubio (R-FL), appear to have been defeated in their efforts to get a vote on amendments that would make a deal with Iran over its nuclear program impossible. And they have only themselves to blame.
Thanks to a parliamentary maneuver by Cotton last week to get a vote on amendments that would make any deal with Iran contingent on Tehran recognizing Israel, disclosing all its nuclear history and closing all its nuclear facilities, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is considering moving ahead this week to a vote on the full bill without voting on several other amendments Republican senators wanted. He has yet to make up his mind.
Republican Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, together with ranking committee Democrat Ben Cardin (D-MD), had been working both sides of the aisle to get a vote on several amendments, including Cotton's, considered without losing needed Democrat support. But Cotton's move made a mess of things. Hence, despite the right's view that the bill is toothless, McConnell may very well just ram it through in something close to its current form.
When the bill first cleared committee it was widely viewed as a case of President Obama blinking and thus a Republican victory since he said he would back it after some items were removed, particularly a requirement for him to certify that Iran is not supporting terrorism that harms Americans, an impossible task. As I noted at the time, it was not a GOP win. If McConnell does move ahead to floor consideration, the bill that is voted on will be substantially the one that the committee approved unanimously last month.
Bill Scher argues, quite rightly, that passing the bill as it stands won't stop Obama from making a deal and neither would defeating the bill. Lose-lose:
What they haven’t come to grips with is that Obama has the power to indefinitely waive sanctions on Iran, because Congress gave that power to him.
All the various sanctions bills passed by Congress, including those passed with bipartisan votes during Obama’s presidency, grant waiver authority to the executive branch. (And one of the main sanctions laws expires completely at the end of 2016.)
Not only does Obama have that authority under current law, his negotiations with Iran are premised on him using that authority. If Congress didn’t want him to do that, it shouldn’t have given him the power in the first place, especially since lawmakers can’t revoke it without a veto-proof supermajority.
The situation could, of course, change. But for now it appears that the efforts of Cotton, et al., to wreck any nuclear deal before it actually happens has failed.