What’s the deal? CU-Boulder political science expert on Iran nuclear
agreement
CU-Boulder Prof Sept. 4, 2015
Ken Bickers
Just when it was looking bleak for President Obama to get enough Senate
Democrat support for the Iran nuclear agreement four senators threw their
support behind the pact this week giving the president 37 - more than
enough votes to sustain a threatened veto of any congressional vote of
disapproval. Surprised by the sudden surge of support? Not CU-Boulder
political science Professor Ken Bickers.
CUT 1 “I was not surprised. All it required was that he not have defections of
more than 25 percent of the Democrats in the Senate. Given the polarization
in Washington these days the degree to which everything becomes partisan,
the idea that the president would lose more than 25 percent of the
Democrats it struck me as implausible. (:19) I assumed, and continue to
assume, that he will have well over 75 percent of the Democrats on his side.”
(:26)
Bickers says this is a major victory for the president, who has always wanted a
significant foreign policy agreement based on diplomacy and not threats of
war.
CUT 2 “I think this is an important victory for the president. What’s important
I think for the president is to have a pretty significant foreign policy victory.
And he started off when he was running for president the first time extolling
the virtues of diplomacy. (:13) So I think this will be one of those agreements
that he will be most remembered for after his presidency.” (:21)
What Bickers finds interesting is how Congress and the president are dealing
with this “treaty that’s not really a treaty” issue.
CUT 3 “It is a bit unorthodox the way this is being dealt with by Congress and
by the president. This has all the hallmarks of a treaty. It looks like a treaty,
it’s going to act like a treaty and they have engineered an alternative kind of
legislative strategy for this - which is that Congress has the opportunity to
disapprove of it, but it’s a disapproval that can be vetoed.” (:22)
What’s even stranger, says Bickers, is because it’s not a treaty the agreement
can be scuttled fairly easily by the next president. But, he says, that’s only
going to happen if a Republican wins the White House.
CUT 4 “Not until there is a new president who’s a Republican. Because of the
unorthodox way this is being put into law, a new president would have a lot
of options for how to change this. (:10) This agreement could be submitted
by the subsequent president as a treaty for ratification by the Senate and that
requires two-thirds of an affirmative vote, not one-third to prevent a
presidential veto from being overwritten. So the simple thing with a
Republican president would be to submit this as a treaty.” (:29)
But nullifying the agreement won’t be that simple, says Bickers. Other
countries are involved and he says it appears sanctions against Iran are
already falling by the wayside even before the agreement has been signed.
Dissolving the agreement would most likely isolate the U.S. and leave it with
little leverage to pressure Iran alone.
CUT 5 “The Iranians have already gone to Russia to start talking about arms
purchases, which under this agreement apparently aren’t supposed to begin
for another several years. But the sanction regime is being dismantled already.
(:13) In a subsequent administration if there were an effort to undo this it
would require American leadership to rebuild a sanctions regime and
presumably that would require some empirical evidence that the Iranians are
not, in fact, abiding by the agreement.” (:29)
Deal supporters are now trying to muster the 41 votes needed to block a
disapproval resolution in the Senate and keep the president from having to
use his veto power. Seven Democrats are undecided. The Senate must vote
on the resolution by Sept. 17.
-CU-