In withdrawing from the Iran nuke deal, the U.S. did not breach a commitment of the United States.
The Trump administration reversed a non-binding, ephemeral policy preference of Barack Obama, who refused to submit the deal as a Treaty under Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution. Had the nuke deal been a treaty, it would have been the supreme law of the land.
Nor was the Iran nuke deal entered into with the consent of Congress, by treaty or otherwise, or under any other authority that made it irrevocable.
Senator Ben Sasse put it perfectly:
The Iran deal has always been terrible. Today is a reminder that if you live by the Presidency, you die by the Presidency. We ought to be clear about this: Donald Trump isn’t ripping up a treaty; he’s walking away from Barack Obama’s personal pledge. Two and a half years ago, President Obama made a bad deal with Iran without support from Congress, and today President Trump is pulling out of President Obama’s personal commitment, and he doesn’t need Congress’s support to do so. American foreign policy makes lasting progress when it is led by the President, approved by Congress, and presented honestly to the American people.
This is another example of Obama’s sandcastles washing away with a new administration. Obama bragged how he would use his pen and his phone to go around Congress on a host of international and domestic issues.
In so doing Obama left most of his legacy at the mercy of the pen and the phone of his successor. Had that successor been Hillary, Obama’s legacy would have been secure. A disaster for our country, but secure.
But Obama’s successor wasn’t Hillary. And Obama’s legacy is washing away.
In the case of the Iran nuke deal, that’s a good thing. The deal was part of Obama’s Grand Bargain with the Mullahs, to give Iran regional hegemony in exchange for a delay in going nuclear. Obama’s hope allegedly was that the Mullah regime in the interim would moderate. That was alway a fraud perpetrated on the American public by Obama, Ben Rhodes and the echo chamber.
Will this lead to war?
Iran has been at war with us and our allies in the region with an increasing intensity since the nuke deal was signed. That’s Obama’s lasting legacy, and it will be more difficult to wash away.
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