Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker is being credited with finessing one of the biggest congressional assertions of foreign policy power in years.
The Foreign Relations Committee chairman, helped by Democrats, steered legislation through his panel Tuesday to give Congress a major role in any final U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.
He did it old-school style,
Defense One reports.
Just hours before the vote — as strong bipartisan support for the bill and a potential veto-proof majority became evident — the
White House dropped its opposition to the bill when Democrats and Corker made several changes, declaring that what was once unacceptable was now a harmless procedural step.
Corker knew better.
"In spite of what may be being said by buildings down the street on the other end of Pennsylvania [Avenue], this legislation is exactly the congressional review we have been working on since Day One,"
Corker said.
The White House couldn't stop the bill's momentum, Defense One notes, and Corker conceded he didn't mind the administration's sudden embrace.
"Of course it was saving face. But listen: I’m glad they saved face and came on board," he said after the vote, Defense One reports. The larger point was that it was "the beginning of a United States Congress, certainly a United States Senate, reasserting itself appropriately in foreign policy," he said.
In a story published Wednesday, even the liberal
New York Times conceded Corker's win: "The White House tried to make the best of the setback... But the president’s concession in the face of potentially veto-proof majorities underscored that even his fellow Democrats believed he had overreached in trying to operate on his own. And it suggested that he may be approaching the outer boundaries of his authority with 21 months left in office."
Defense One notes that Corker's approach stands in sharp contrast to the brash tack taken by freshman Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, who
worked up a controversial letter to Iran’s leaders warning that a future president or Congress could junk a nuclear pact with Tehran.
Coker wouldn't sign the letter.
The Corker bill, in contrast, would give Congress the power to formally review the deal and thwart the suspension of congressionally imposed sanctions against Iran.
Senate GOP leaders plan to bring the bill to the floor, and the House will take it up after that, Defense One notes.
Meanwhile, Obama's use of executive actions, and his ability to continue using them, seem to be in question. His use of executive power to give amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants is bogged down in the courts, for example.
In a stop in Charlotte Wednesday, he told a woman who asked him about equal pay that, "We’ve probably exhausted what I can do through executive actions."