No deal or no deal

For more than a year now, President Obama and his negotiating team have been on the hunt for his “Tear down this wall” moment—getting Iran to officially give up pursuit of nuclear weapons. In the interest of keeping the Middle East stable and protecting Israel, preventing Iran from nuclear capabilities is a chief goal for any American leader. However, poor negotiation technique is a bipartisan issue in Washington these days, especially regarding this proposed deal with the ironically named Republic of Iran.

Let’s start with the White House, which has engaged in diplomatic conversations with Iran while abandoning the longstanding, bipartisan American tradition of negotiating from a position of strength. The White House didn’t name any preconditions upon entering negotiations with Iran even with two viable demands locked in jail cells; Marine Veteran Amir Hekmati and Idaho Pastor Saeed Abedini still are unjustly trapped in Iranian prisons that make Guantanamo Bay look like a Four Seasons hotel. “Standards of negotiation,” which serve as guiding principles, haven’t been implemented in our negotiations with Iran even as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has continued to terrorize commercial ships in the Straight of Hormuz.

Given each nation’s relative strength and global importance, the actual proposal with Iran might manage to make our ill-conceived pre-negotiation strategy appear competent. Leaked details reveal that this deal might not do nearly enough to prevent a nuclear Iran. First, while Iran has promised to remove two-thirds of their nuclear centrifuges, they could still get to keep thousands of their secret, bunkered, underground centrifuges. And they’re not even removing centrifuges; they’re expanding! Recent intelligence data demonstrates that Iran’s centrifuge arsenal has grown 20% over the timeline of negotiations. Secondly, nearly all UN, US and EU economic sanctions on Iran could be lifted immediately pending Iran’s agreement to the deal, their hostage taking of American citizens, human rights violations and state sponsorship of terrorism notwithstanding. These sanctions have crippled Iran’s economy and subsequently have been enormously successful in creating public doubt about the value of a nuclear program.

Worst of all, there’s no enforcement mechanisms for failed inspections in the deal, and the Supreme Leader of Iran has already promised to never allow IAEA nuclear inspectors in Iranian military sites even though that’s required by this deal. The secretive nature of Iran’s nuclear program still prevails post-agreement, and there’s too much trust bestowed upon the Iranian government for our security to be secured. Even if you think this deal is a net positive for international relations, the valueless position the White House is negotiating from leaves the deal a huge disappointment. The United States is the lone force on the planet right now capable of preventing Israel from wiping all of Iran’s nuclear facilities (no matter what they’re for) off the planet, and the President and his administration failed to capitalize on this trump card.

The President’s poor strategy isn’t alone in D.C. The deal’s opponents have been equally sad in their efforts negotiating with the White House. Take the Senate, where a bipartisan coalition of Senators from Marco Rubio (R-Fl) to Bob Melendez (D-NJ) has united in opposing the President’s Iran deal. For President Obama to sign a treaty with Iran, Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution dictates that two-thirds of senators concur with the agreement. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) boldly reminded Iran’s leadership of this fact in a public letter, pointing out that the President’s promises (without the Senate’s backing) constitutionally were not a fait accompli. Cotton’s letter was met with vicious repudiation from the White House and its Democratic allies, but it is the lone action from the opposition that put the Obama administration on the defensive for the Iran deal.

The heat from the media and beltway elite against Cotton’s letter led to a new strategy for opposing the deal. Enter Bob Corker (R-TN), the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the chief architect of a bill that has a veto-proof majority in both the Senate and House. The bill, which has already passed, requires that the President submit any agreement with Iran to both houses of Congress and requires a fifty percent majority to approve. With the passing of the Corker bill, the Senate traded their two-third threshold of ratification for a simple majority and now share their agreement power on the deal with the House of Representatives. Blasphemy. The lone Senator to vote against the Corker bill and protect the Senate’s right to ratification was Tom Cotton, who sums up his opposition to the Corker bill nicely: "A nuclear-arms agreement with any adversary—especially the terror-sponsoring, Islamist Iranian regime—should be submitted as a treaty and obtain a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate as required by the Constitution.” Senator Cotton and I agree that the treaty clause exists to make it easy to protect the American people from poorly planned foreign policy. Just because there’s an agreement in the works doesn’t mean it’s Congress’ responsibility to stamp approval; rather, it’s the Senate’s duty to protect America and our ally Israel from this mess the White House considers a deal.

Max Schreiber is a Pratt senior. His column will run bi-weekly in the fall.