Richard Baehr The battle for Congress
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=13305
The 60-day clock for congressional consideration of the Iran deal, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has barely begun to run, and the White House and its allies are already in full sell-and-destroy mode. As details of the agreement are revealed, including side agreements, the total collapse of our side’s negotiating position in the last few weeks of the talks has become more apparent. This should be an easy deal to reject on the merits. The promise of “anytime, anywhere” inspections turned into 24-day advanced notice inspections. It was just rhetoric, claimed White House adviser Ben Rhodes. We never meant it. Inspections at the Parchin facility, where it is generally assumed military research and testing took place connected with Iran’s nuclear program, will now consist of the International Atomic Energy Agency examining samples provided by the Iranians.
The so-called snap-back sanctions to deal with Iranian violations of the agreement will require a vote by five of eight voting members, consisting of the P5+1, the EU and Iran, to certify noncompliance by Iran of the agreement, and the reinstallation of sanctions. Given the desperation demonstrated by the P5+1 to get the deal done, and the early schedules of commercial visits by European leaders and companies to stake their claims to Iran, the chances that the Europeans or the United States (at least one where Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is president) will vote to unravel their “diplomatic achievement” and commercial deals, and restore international sanctions is zero.
Relief on sanctions on ballistic missiles and conventional arms sales were never even discussed until the last week of the talks, and these sanctions will now expire in a few years. This last late concession is easy to explain — Iran asked for it. When the Iranians understood there was no chance of America taking military action and zero chance of America walking away from the negotiations whatever their demands, it certainly made sense for the Iranians to demand more goodies before the deal was finally inked. For all we know, the reported shouting match between John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart in the final days was all for show (or hear). If there has been a poorer performance in international diplomacy in American history than Kerry’s, it is hard to find, though the Nobel Committee’s Neville Chamberlain peace prize may still be awaiting.
The sell side by the administration is easy to see and probably necessary given the piñata-like quality of the deal. The president and his team have been reduced to arguing that all avenues to an Iranian bomb have been closed off for some time, and that the alternative is war if Congress rejects the deal. However, the war option is a fiction with this president, and the path to a bomb, if Iran chooses to break out, may be just a few months longer than it was before a deal was signed. So too, in an act of utter contempt of Congress, the president rushed to the U.N. Security Council to get the deal endorsed before Congress considered the agreement, angering even some Democrats in Congress, who do not see themselves as mere Obama puppets.
The president and vice president have been meeting with Democrats in the House and Senate to do the early lobbying before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other groups get to members. The testimony by administration defenders of the deal in the Foreign Affairs committees of Congress has been pitched almost exclusively to Democrats, under the assumption that Republicans in both the House and Senate are set to vote no with few if any deal supporters. The president has made his regular tour of duty on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” to attack opponents of the deal as in the thrall of lobbyists and special interests (meaning of course rich Jews and AIPAC). The president brought along 17 House Democrats (and one Republican) for his Air Force One trip to Kenya. The president has had his sit-down with the self-styled éminence grise of the establishment, Tom Friedman, to provide the talking points for Friedman to write his predictable column outlining pros and cons of the deal but winding up of course with an endorsement.
Far uglier is the transparent attempt to portray opponents of the agreement as racist. A column in The Washington Post by Colbert King does exactly that, suggesting that pretty much all opposition to Obama on the Iran agreement and on anything else is due to his race, and that blacks have figured this out and now despise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for daring to challenge the White House yet again. The article basically calls on Jewish opponents of the deal to back off if they want to preserve harmonious relations with African-Americans. The exact same strategy played out before Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress, when Obama met with the Congressional Black Caucus and African-American congressmen, having received their talking points, then argued that Netanyahu was being disrespectful for showing up to speak at the invitation of House Speaker John Boehner. A large number of the roughly 60 Democrats who boycotted Netanyahu’s talk were African-American. One might argue that when a quarter of the Democratic Party’s members in Congress boycott a speech by the elected leader of an ally of the United States on an issue critical to that country’s survival, that the boycott action is what is really disrespectful, and in fact unheard of in American history. But you might get called a racist for saying that.
Predictably, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declared herself very comfortable with the Iran agreement, and unlike with the health care bill she helped steward to the finish line, claimed to have read it. Skeptics abound, since her declaration of support seemed to be ready to go immediately upon the deal’s announcement. While not a great thinker or analyst, Pelosi’s role is more straightforward — whip her members into shape to insure the agreement is not derailed in Congress. Other House Democrats were on board even before the deal was signed, with Illinois horror, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, assisting her convicted felon husband as he plotted media strategy to support the agreement with a collection of far-left groups who naturally like a deal that is good for Iran and dangerous for Israel.
The focus of so much of the administration’s effort so far on Democrats in the House is telling about the state of play in Congress at the moment. While the administration is still in a strong position, the deal is so visibly problematic that many members are uncomfortable with details of the agreement. There are potentially two stages to the vote in Congress. Republicans control 247 of the 435 House seats, and a simple majority is all that is required to take action in the House. On an initial consideration of the deal, even if some House Republicans break with the party, the deal is certain to be rejected. In the initial consideration in the Senate, 60 votes are needed to bring the resolution to the floor, meaning that at least six Democrats would have to join 54 Republicans (assuming they all stay in line) to bring a vote on the deal, where it would then be voted down.
With the exception of New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, who seems certain to vote no, other Democratic Senate members, who would seem to be naturals to oppose the deal, such as New York Senator Chuck Schumer (who always claims to be the protector of Jews and Israel in Congress) have so far not committed either way. A large rally in New York City this week aimed a lot of its fire at Schumer for his indecisiveness. Opponents of the deal want a lot more from Schumer than announcing that he weighed and balanced everything and decided to vote no. They want him to lobby another 15 or so Senate members who may be on the fence on the deal — to show some spine and leadership. A simple no vote by Schumer with no lobbying effort on his part might be the cautious path he chooses. He is in line to be the top Democrat in the Senate beginning in 2017 with Nevada Senator Harry Reid retiring, and as an ambitious careerist, would not want to be the one blamed for the defeat of the president’s deal. That might lead to a challenger for the party leadership spot and a ceiling on Schumer’s ambitions.
The fact that the administration is concentrating its efforts on House Democrats suggests that they are anticipating an initial defeat for the agreement in both the House and Senate. That resolution of rejection would of course be vetoed by Obama, requiring opponents to then muster a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress to override the veto. Assuming all Republicans stick together, that means 43 House Democrats and 13 Democratic senators would need to vote with Republicans. The president would of course prefer that the opponents of the deal are beaten back the first time Congress votes, which means that no more than five Democratic senators can vote with Republicans on the cloture bill to bring the vote to the Senate floor. The focus on the House means the White House may expect to lose the initial vote in both houses of Congress, and is already working to defeat the override vote, not the initial vote, and has chosen the easier branch of Congress to win — since House Democrats are more partisan and left-leaning than those in the Senate.
California Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman suggested that quite a few House Democrats may oppose the deal initially, but be more cautious of voting to override a presidential veto, which puts them at war with the president. Since the Republican House majority insures defeat for the deal the first time through, voting no on the initial consideration is a free ride for Democrats in the House. Sherman is one of 18 Jewish House Democrats, and only three are certain at this point to side with the White House — Schakowsky, Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Jon Yarmuth of Kentucky. If opponents are to have any chance to successfully override a veto, the Jewish Democrats in both the House and Senate will be a key component of the coalition. With AIPAC taking on a rare public fight with a president, this will be a test for them as well as the White House. We will see whether party loyalty always trumps support for any issue or cause.
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