Why Won't Obama Work with Bob Corker?

Why Won't Obama Work with Bob Corker?

by John Allen Gay, The National Interest - The Obama administration appears to be on the brink of signing a nuclear deal with Iran. If it pulls it off, it’ll be its biggest diplomatic accomplishment in years, one likely to render America safer and tame a key source of instability in an increasingly consequential U.S.-Iran dyad.

If it doesn’t get blown up by Congress, that is. And if it does, the administration will, contrary to its endless protestations, be greatly to blame. How else are we to explain the administration’s impending confrontation with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Corker? Corker’s proposal to give Congress a vote on the Iran deal—a far more palatable approach than what many of his colleagues have tried—is likely to advance out of his committee next week, and the administration is scrambling to keep Democrats from supporting it. (keep reading)

The National Interest (TNI) is a respected American bi-monthly international affairs magazine published by the Center for the National Interest. It is associated with the realist school of foreign policy thought. This is an excellent article examining the folly of the President in trying to reach a deal with Iran without engaging Congress.

I cannot fathom the arrogance of the Obama administration in thinking the President can make foreign policy without the participation of Congress. The constitution in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 says, "The President... shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...." 

The President cannot make a treaty with another country.  Any understanding between the President and another foreign leader is no more than that if not endorsed by Congress. For a greater understanding of the treaty clause of the Constitution follow this link. There is no scholarship that endorses the view that the President can make a treaty without the treaty being confirmed by Congress. There is no tradition that the President can make a treaty without the support of Congress. Bob Corker has been the voice of pragmatism and compromise but President Obama apparently thinks Congress is an impediment to his divine right to rule. Rod

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