Polite Sabotage: The Attempt to Gut the Iran Oversight Bill by Amendment

This morning’s New York Times has an excellent article outlining the debate over Senator Corker’s Iran deal oversight bill---likely heading for mark-up tomorrow. But most interesting to me was the brief section on how White House-aligned Democrats are targeting the bill:

Democrats on the committee, in close consultation with the White House, have focused on two issues. They want to relax the prohibition on Mr. Obama to waive economic sanctions, and they want to remove language tying approval of the accord to certification that Iran will no longer provide support for terrorist attacks on Americans.

It’s a shame the Times article didn’t dig a bit deeper here, because what the authors present as a reasonable-sounding attempt to “amend” parts of the bill is actually a full-fledged assault on the bill’s entire purpose. Under the Corker bill as drafted, any Iran deal would be delayed for 60 days (through a temporary suspension of the presidential waiver authority included in original sanctions legislation) to allow time for a Congressional debate and vote. If Congress fails to formally disapprove the deal (presumably overriding a presidential veto), the deal would automatically go into effect. The primary attempt at subtle sabotage is being led by Senators Ben Cardin (Maryland), Chris Murphy (Connecticut) and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire). Their proposed amendments all include carving out exceptions to the 60-day suspension on presidential waiver authority large enough to drive a truck---or a major arms control deal---through. Cardin’s version allows “the limited use of waivers to the extent necessary for Iran to commence compliance with an agreement.” Murphy’s would allow the same “if failure to do so would be a violation of the comprehensive joint plan of action,” and Shaheen’s would do the same “if it is appropriate and proportionate to the specific and verifiable measures taken by Iran with respect to terminating its illicit nuclear program and vital to the national security interests of the US.” Each of these amendments would, as a practical matter, eliminate any barrier to the president imposing the deal immediately and unilaterally. The president could ignore the entire mandated review period simply by making amorphous determinations about what was “necessary,” “proportionate” or “vital.” As another reporter covering the legislation told me, some Senate Democrats are afraid of looking soft on Iran by voting against the bill, but they are also afraid of angering the White House, so they are resorting to a subtle “form of polite sabotage.” The deeper irony in these amendments is that the original legislation authorizing presidential waivers of sanctions only permitted them for the purposes of the “national security interests of the United States.” The whole point of the Corker bill is to temporarily embargo that waiver authority so that Congress can determine whether it disagrees with the President’s judgement on whether sanctions relief really is the national interest. These amendments would simply return us to the status-quo as if there was no Corker bill at all. The second “issue” flagged by the Times article concerns Democratic attempts to “remove language tying approval of the accord to certification that Iran will no longer provide support for terrorist attacks on Americans.” These attempts, advanced by Senators Cardin, Murphy and Chris Coons, are less inherently destructive---but they are also not nearly as significant as implied by the Times. The current legislation doesn’t actually “tie approval” of the deal to certification that Iran isn’t engaged in terrorism; it merely requires that, every 90 days, the President must “determine whether [he] is able to certify that… Iran has not directly supported or carried out an act of terrorism against the United States or a United States person” (emphasis added). If the President can’t submit such a certification, the deal remains in place nonetheless. The lack of certification would simply allow Congress to “initiate within 60 days expedited consideration of qualifying legislation” to reimpose sanctions. In addition to needing to cobble together a majority any such legislation would still be subject to a presidential veto. Of course, forcing multiple failed presidential certifications (and subsequently, multiple votes) because of Iranian support of terror might be bad idea. And Democrats can certainly argue in good faith that the nuclear issue and support for terrorism ought to be kept separate. Nevertheless, the provision is simply not all that significant. So if the measure stays, it is hardly grounds for any of these Democrats to oppose the bill as a whole. But while there is room for flexibility on the terrorism certification, there should be none on the question of “relaxing” the temporary suspension of presidential waiver authority. Suspending the president’s already “relaxed” authorities is the whole point of the bill!  Those who believe that Congress should have a meaningful role in overseeing the Iran deal should recognize the Cardin/Murphy/Shaheen attempts to massage this point for what they are: a more polite version of Senator Barbara Boxer’s explicit attempt to kill the entire bill. Proponents of the Congressional oversight should fight these “polite sabotage” amendments tooth and nail.