Power without accountability

When word came late last week that Chuck Schumer would vote to disapprove of the nuclear deal between Iran and five world powers, it represented the gravest threat so far to the hoped-for signature foreign policy achievement of President Obama’s second term. Schumer, as a leader of the more hawkish faction of Senate Democrats, would (the theory goes) make it easier for other Democrats to break with the president and side with the groups furiously lobbying against the deal. If enough of them join the Republican caucus to vote to disapprove of the deal—and then to override the presidential veto that will certainly follow—the deal will be effectively dead.

Opponents of the Iran deal have painted vivid pictures of what will happen if it’s approved: billions of dollars of sanctions relief buoying a regime bent on cheating on its own agreements and threatening Israel. Supporters have stressed the foreign-policy calamities that await if the deal is killed: an international sanctions regime that collapses on its own, with no inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities in place and the threat of war looming on the horizon. 

There will be another set of consequences as well if a sitting president finds his negotiated agreements with foreign powers overruled by Congress. In a parliamentary system, a vote against this deal would amount to a vote of no confidence in the government—forcing a new coalition to form, or new elections for a new parliament. The American system of government doesn’t work that way. If Congress kills the deal, Barack Obama will still be president.