OPINION:
Jed Babbin’s recent column (“Bob Corker’s blunder helping Obama get Iran deal,” Web, Aug. 30) appropriately criticized President Obama’s United Nations Security Council Resolution promoting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. Unfortunately, he grossly mischaracterized my role in the congressional debate over the Iran nuclear agreement.
Mr. Babbin is entitled to his opinion, but not his own facts.
I led the opposition to the president’s nuclear deal with Iran, and 98 senators and 400 representatives joined me in passing a bill to establish a process for congressional review.
While I agree that the president should have made such a sweeping agreement a treaty, ultimately the decision to submit a treaty to the Senate lies with the executive branch of government under Article II of the Constitution — not Congress. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama made clear from the beginning of the negotiations that he had no intention to refer it to the Senate as a treaty and instead planned to go straight to the United Nations Security Council to ratify a “non-binding political agreement,” leaving Congress with a simple choice: do nothing, or find a way to try to stop the agreement. I opted for the latter.
Our bill was the only way to guarantee a role for Congress. It forced the details of the agreement to be revealed, and while in the end there were not enough votes to stop the deal, it demonstrated that a broad bipartisan majority opposed implementation.
Without it, there would have been no requirement that Congress receive full details of the deal; no review period for Congress to examine and weigh in on the agreement; no requirement that the president regularly certify that Iran is complying; and no way for Congress to rapidly reimpose sanctions should Iran cheat.
Mr. Babbin’s suggestion that the Senate should have done “nothing” and kept the American people in the dark defies common sense.
SEN. BOB CORKER
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Washington
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