On May 7, 2015, the U.S. Senate voted on a bipartisan bill that afforded Congress a say on what could be a major agreement between the United States, five other nations — China, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany —and Iran. If a final deal is reached between Iran and the so-called 5+1 group, Iran’s nuclear program will be largely limited in exchange for relief from crippling economic sanctions. Meanwhile, President Obama has made it clear that if new amendments are added that could jeopardize a deal with Iran, he will surely oppose it. It is abundantly clear, however, that even if Congress rejects a possible nuclear deal with Iran, President Obama could use his executive power to offer considerable sanction relief with or without congressional approval.

More importantly, President Obama could take unilateral actions, which together with the EU and UN sanctions relief, would allow a deal to go through on a target date of June 30. The legislation would prevent Obama from waiving congressional sanctions for at least 30 days while both the Senate and House weigh in on any final deal. This means that the Senators’ disapproval of the deal would prevent the President from suspending certain economic sanctions. The legislation would require Congress to pass a resolution of disapproval to turn down the deal—an outcome that President Obama would surely veto. To be clear, such a resolution would require 60 votes to pass the Senate and a simple majority to pass the House. If this becomes a reality, then President Obama will have no option but to veto the resolution. To override a presidential veto, two-thirds of both the Senate and House—that is, 67 Senators and 290 Representatives—must vote against the President’s choice.

This is no mean task given that in the House, nearly 150 Democrats, the number needed to sustain a veto, have notified the president in writing that they strongly endorse the current nuclear negotiations with Iran. Some analysts have argued that, while in theory Congress now has an overview function when it comes to Iran’s nuclear deal, in practice, this agreement between the President and Congress is in fact little more than a speed bump slowing the Obama administration’s drive to sign a dicey nuclear deal with Iran. It is important to remember that Congress wants to boost its oversight role in any final deal. It is equally important to bear in mind that any final deal, as experts remind us, would be basically an “agreement,” and not a “treaty.” As such, it requires no ratification by the Senate. Many Republican Senators attempted—albeit in futility—to elevate this framework agreement from what it is—just an agreement—to the status of treaty.

For now, President Obama appears to count on two factors: (1) Democrats’ backing in Congress and (2) the support of public opinion. The recent polling by the PEW and Washington-Post/ABC has shown that the U.S. public favors negotiations and diplomacy with Iran. Increasingly, the American public shows concern about the alternative to negotiations: military action. If the U.S. Congress decides to disrupt the continuity of diplomacy and negotiations with Iran, international consensus will crumble and the possibility of military conflict will widen ever more slightly. If this comes to pass, the 5+1 group will find it very difficult to extend or even increase sanctions on Iran. These outcomes will ignore the hefty cost of unilateralism in U.S. foreign policy, resulting in a strategic mistake of historic proportion.



*******Mahmood Monshipouri, PhD, teaches Middle Eastern Politics at San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley. He is working on an edited volume entitled, Information Politics, Protests, and Human Rights in the Digital Age (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).