RUTHFULLY YOURS

When a couple of lawyers lecture you about your “fundamental misunderstanding of our Constitution and the relative powers of Congress and the president in foreign policy,” ask yourself this: Have they cited the provisions of constitutional or statutory law they claim you’ve misunderstood? If not, if they’re hiding the ball, you’re probably being conned. Alas, that is the case with the disingenuous defense of Senator Bob Corker’s Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 (INARA), offered on Thursday by Lester Munson and Jamil Jaffer, two former staffers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Corker chairs.

The senator’s nose is out of joint over a National Review editorial this week. With his name among those being floated to be appointed secretary of state in the Trump administration, the editors observed that Corker “was last seen facilitating President Obama’s Iran-deal path through Congress, in one of the prime exhibits of GOP fecklessness in recent years.”

Truer words were never spoken. Professors Munson and Jaffer try in vain to paper over this fact, replaying the sleight-of-hand their former boss has spun since first proposing the woeful INARA. They misstate both the law and the position of INARA naysayers — of whom, I am proud to say, I was among the most ardent.

Let’s deal first with the matter of misrepresenting the naysayers. Contrary to the professors’ claim, it is not true that “many people think Congress ought to have ‘forced’ the president to submit the Iran deal as a treaty.” Nor do Corker’s detractors believe “Congress should have ‘made’ the Iran deal a treaty.” Congress has no power to coerce the president to comply with the Constitution’s treaty clause (art. II, sec. 2, cl. 2), a provision the authors take pains to avoid addressing.

What we in the opposition argued is that, if Congress does not undermine it, the Constitution is plenty strong enough to foil the ambitions of a rogue president. True, Congress cannot compel the president to execute our law faithfully. But if the president is derelict in his duty to submit an international agreement to the Senate for its approval, or to the full Congress for implementation as ordinary legislation, then the agreement will not have the force of American law. It remains a mere executive agreement between the president and other chiefs of state. That means it may be rescinded at any time, by either the president who entered it or a successor president.

WASTED WORDS

President Obama, who has done less for Europe than any American President since Calvin Coolidge, cannot stop telling Europeans what to do. As Obama sets out on his final European tour as President, with his political party back home in a state of near collapse, and with Putin inflicting yet another painful humiliation on the least successful American President in the history of the modern Middle East, nothing seems able to shake his serene confidence that he knows more than other people, sees farther than they do, and that other people are eager to gather up his pearls of insight.
Here is the Wall Street Journal on Obama’s trip to Greece:

President Barack Obama urged Europe to resolve lingering issues from its debt crisis, saying on Tuesday that leaders should favor growth over austerity, as part of their response to the rising populism in Western countries exemplified by the election of Donald Trump.
Mr. Obama made the appeal after meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who said it is time for Greece to receive significant debt relief from Europe.Mr. Obama said European leaders should follow economic policies that ease some of the voter backlash against globalization, as they grapple with political trends similar to those behind Mr. Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election.

Not everything Obama is recommending to Europe is bad, but his words no longer have a significant impact from a continent battered first by his failures in foreign policy and now by the collapse of his legacy at home. Obama will be remembered by historians as the man who turned over the White House to Donald Trump, the man who let Putin unleash the forces of Hell in Syria and Ukraine, and the man who honored European values but made the world steadily less safefor them.
That Putin took the occasion of Obama’s final tour to open a widenew air offensive in Syria and withdraw from the ICC even as his allies celebrated victories in Estonia, Moldova and Bulgaria only underlines what a foreign policy disaster the 44th President has been. Many world leaders like Obama; some pity him; few respect him as a leader (rather than as a man); none fear him. Most are too busy coping with the consequences of his failures to spend a lot of time thinking about him at this point in his presidency. Even Germany, whose cheering crowds once greeted Obama as an enlightened internationalist in the mold of John F. Kennedy, has gradually lost faith in the President.The early signs of struggle and factionalism in the Donald Trump transition, meanwhile, are leading many foreigners to suppose that the next American President will be another inconsequential bumbler. We must hope that they are wrong; not even the power of the United States can survive a long string of failed Presidents unscathed.

Still, Josh Earnest concluded, a diplomatic solution “is our only path.”

The White House admitted today that Secretary of State John Kerry’s effort “working doggedly even in the face of some very difficult challenges to try to bring the parties together to resolve that violence” in Syria has “not worked.”

Russia unleashed a blitz on the besieged city of Aleppo this week, while not striking ISIS-controlled areas of Syria.

On MSNBC this morning, White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked about Russia bombing a children’s hospital in Aleppo. Doctors told an NBC reporter that President Obama has done nothing to help them.

“What is true is that the tactics that had been used by the Assad regime and also have used by the Russians are disgraceful,” Earnest replied. “They are frankly targeting innocent civilians trying to bomb them into submission including by targeting hospitals and playgrounds and other locations that are frequented by innocent civilians including women and children. And it is an outrage.”

“And the moral outrage of the international community has been expressed loudly in opposition to this. The question really is what can the international community do, led by the United States, to try to bring that violence down? And try to make sure that innocent people are not caught in the crossfire?”

In the days following Donald Trump’s victory, a variety of experts – mostly Trump critics – pronounced that, despite Trump’s frequent statements during the presidential campaign that the July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is one of “the worst deals ever made by any country in history,” he has no choice but to stick with the agreement after he assumes office.

Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif was one of the first to insist as much, claiming a Trump administration cannot back out of the nuclear deal because it is not a bilateral agreement between the United States and Iran but “an international understanding annexed to a Security Council resolution.”

Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council (which The Weekly Standard’s Lee Smith once described as “the tip of the spear of the Iran lobby” in the United States) echoed Zarif’s statement. In a November 11 Foreign Policy article, he argued Trump can undermine the Iran deal but cannot directly dismantle it because the JCPOA is a multilateral agreement “codified by the UN Security Council.” Any attempt by a Trump administration to renegotiate the deal would violate international law and isolate the United States, Parsi said.

Even some conservative experts have suggested Trump probably won’t try to significantly modify or discard the nuclear agreement, but will instead try to goad Iran into withdrawing by strictly enforcing the deal.

But Trump senior national-security adviser Walid Phares poured cold water on speculation that Trump plans to walk back his statements about the Iran deal, when he commented on Facebook over the weekend that the “Iran Deal will be dismantled.”

This firm statement by Phares confirmed previous statements he and Mr. Trump have made that the deal is a dangerous agreement that needs to be either significantly renegotiated or abandoned. As an expert who has followed the Iran nuclear program for many years inside and outside of government, I would like to expand on their statements by offering three key points about the nature of the deal and ten guidelines for renegotiating it.

For those who believe President Obama is a lame duck simply waiting for his departure from the White House and the commencement of wealth pursuits, there is a likely surprise coming. The president has signaled that he may seek a U.N. Security Council Resolution which embodies a Palestinian state with pre-1967 lines, notwithstanding a different stance by President Elect Donald Trump.

This remarkable act would unequivocally betray the U.S. policy of vetoing anti-Israel resolutions. It would also attempt to make “illegal” Israeli buildings in east Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and set in place a stance that President Trump would be hard pressed to overturn. Recently President Obama, in language that can only be regarded as hostile, said that settlement construction, even if regarded as an organic expansion of overcrowded areas is unacceptable.

Despite the long-standing and “inmutable” ties between Israel and the United States, the Obama administration questioned whether Israel is a “friend”. Even a New York Times editorial called for the president to lead the Security Council in a resolution to support a two-state solution. When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu argued a Palestinian state would be one with “no Jews,” an extreme form of ethnic cleansing – which President Abbas of the Palestinian Territory actually said – the U.S. administration denied it.

Should such a Palestinian state be created, the consequences are likely to be extreme. First, direct negotiations between Israel and Palestinian authorities would be rendered irrelevant. Why negotiate when your goals can be achieved through third parties?

Second, despite assurances likely to be provided by President Obama, the influence of Hamas and Iran is almost inevitable. As a consequence, terror and violence will be the aftermath of the president’s initiative.

In fact, it is the EU, not Donald Trump that threatens to undermine NATO and the security of the West.

An EU defence union will also present a direct threat to NATO, competing for funds, building in duplication and confusion, and setting up rival military structures.

This is breath-taking hypocrisy from the defence minister of Germany, which spends less than 1.2% of GDP on defence against an agreed NATO minimum target of 2%, while freeloading off the America’s 73% contribution to NATO’s overall defence spending.

European leaders would do well to recognize that they need the US more than the US needs them, and that real, concrete, committed defence from the world’s greatest military power is more beneficial to them than a fantasy army that will have plenty of flags, headquarters and generals but no teeth.

Trump should also prioritize both practical and moral support to anti-Islamist regimes in the Middle East, such as Sisi’s Egypt.

Trump described Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran as ‘the worst deal ever negotiated’ and has vowed to counteract Iran’s violations, if necessary hitting them with tough new sanctions and perhaps tearing up the deal altogether.

Rather than spreading fear and false propaganda about Donald Trump, they should be praying that he will provide the strength that is so desperately needed today, and working out how best they can support rather than attack him.

Since Donald Trump’s election, media-fuelled panic has engulfed Europe, including over defence and security. We are told that World War III is imminent, that Trump will jump into bed with Putin and that he will pull the US out of NATO. Such fantasies are put about by media cheerleaders for European political elites, terrified that Trump’s election will inspire support for populist candidates in the forthcoming elections in Germany, the Netherlands and France.

In fact, it is the EU, not Donald Trump that threatens to undermine NATO and the security of the West. In recent days EU president Jean-Claude Juncker, his foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen have suggested that Trump’s election should give greater impetus to a European defence force.

They will have to deal with a man who says he does not mind being called a dictator.

Most recently, the World Justice Project placed Turkey 99th out of 113 countries on its Rule of Law Index 2016, performing even worse than Myanmar and Iran.

Turkey is also now the world’s biggest jailer of journalists and academics. It also claims the title of the world’s biggest jailer of opposition politicians.

There is little Europe can do about the new dictatorship emerging at its doors. Germany is offering dissidents asylum. But asylum can only be an individual, tentative solution for a few Turks when at Erdogan’s target are millions.

Bilateral relations with NATO ally Turkey are probably not on president-elect Donald Trump’s top-50 priority list. All the same, when Trump’s diplomats will have to work with Turkey on issues that may soon gain prominence — such as Syria — they will have to deal with a man who says he does not mind being called a dictator.

Instead of resembling a Western democracy in the European Union — to which Turkey has long been struggling to join as a full member — Turkey increasingly looks like Kim Jong-Un’s North Korea. Most recently, the World Justice Project placed Turkey 99th out of 113 countries on its Rule of Law Index 2016, performing even worse than Myanmar and Iran. The index measures nations for constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement and civil and criminal justice.

Turkey is also now the world’s biggest jailer of journalists and academics.

It also claims the title of the world’s biggest jailer of opposition politicians. A dozen lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish, opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were detained on November 4 because they refused to give testimony in criminal proceedings. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that democratically elected officials normally can only be forced from office in an election, but those officials who mix with and encourage “terrorism” must face legal proceedings. Turkish prosecutors began probing more than 50 HDP members of parliament after the legislature voted to scrap immunity in certain cases. Turkish officials say HDP lawmakers were detained because they refuse to testify in their cases.