Make a Deal with Iran -- and Congress

WASHINGTON -- If President Obama had his way, Congress would simply keep its pesky nose out of the Iran nuclear deal. Given his critics' behavior, it's easy to understand such presidential bristling. Still, the better course -- and, more to the point, the unavoidable course, given Republican majorities in both houses -- would be for the Obama administration to switch from bristling to deal-making.

It should work with Congress to find a mechanism that lets lawmakers weigh in on the Iran agreement -- an agreement, after all, that involves undoing sanctions imposed by Congress itself. Indeed, congressional involvement could end up strengthening the administration's hand as it hammers out the final contours of the deal, not weakening this and future presidents.

I write this as someone cautiously supportive of the nuclear deal. I write, too, recognizing that some congressional claims asserting legislative prerogatives are not-so-thinly veiled efforts to undermine both the Iran deal and the president who crafted it.

With 47 Senate Republicans having written to Iranian leaders, in the midst of negotiations, warning that the president was just one, soon-to-be-off-the-stage player, Obama's resistance to sharing power with such folks comes as no surprise. Likewise, congressional protestations about its reviewing authority are awfully hard to square with congressional inaction on updating the authorization for the use of military force.

And yet, including Congress is both unavoidable and the wiser path. To understand this inevitable reality, consider a few things:

First, not only the 54-member Republican majority in the Senate, but the fact that nine Democrats -- including Democratic leader-in-waiting Chuck Schumer of New York -- have co-sponsored a measure by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee that would establish a framework for congressional involvement.

So do the math: 54 plus 9 edges dangerously close to a veto-proof majority; and where Schumer treads, wavering Democrats are apt to follow. In the House, a two-thirds majority might be harder to assemble, but the Corker measure remains a fact of life that the administration can't ignore.

Second, the Corker bill, while still containing some provisions obnoxious to the White House, is dramatically improved from its original version and amenable to further tinkering when it comes before the Foreign Relations panel next week.

Under the first version, the deal would be automatically blocked if Congress disapproved it. The new language, negotiated by Tim Kaine of Virginia, would let the deal take effect after 60 days either with a "yes" vote from Congress or if Congress failed to act within that time frame.

Under the first version, the disapproval resolution would have been on the entire deal, including executive and international sanctions. The new language limits congressional involvement to the sanctions imposed by Congress. The president has power, under the existing sanctions law, to waive those on his own. But even the administration recognizes that perpetual executive waiver is unsustainable; ultimately, Congress will need to act.

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