IRAN REALITY – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  The Iran nuclear deal cannot be stopped by Congress.  That was assured yesterday when retiring Dem Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland announced her support for the pact, giving Obama the guarantee that his veto of any negative vote on it by Congress would be sustained. 

But where does that leave us as a country?  In a very bad place.  From the Washington Examiner:

On Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., announced her support for President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. This was significant because she is the 34th senator to announce she would be voting for it.

This means that even if the Senate manages to pass a bill blocking the deal later this month, it will lack the two-thirds support necessary to override a presidential veto.

Some have asserted that this means Obama got his Iran deal through Congress. That isn't quite accurate, though. What Obama has done is get his Iran deal around Congress. Lawmakers may not be able to stop it based on the procedure they created to express approval or disapproval, but the deal does not enjoy support on Capitol Hill, nor among the American public.

Despite an extensive and expensive effort to lobby lawmakers and the public, Obama's Iran deal still faces majority opposition in both chambers of Congress. A majority of the public, according to two recent polls by respected pollsters (CNN and Quinnipiac), wants Congress to reject the deal.

This means that Obama will get his deal despite lacking not only the supermajority support that is typically required for a treaty with a foreign country, but also a bare majority or public approval. Whatever one has to say about previous major foreign policy decisions, very few are undertaken under such circumstances as this. Even the Iraq War, a much larger undertaking for the U.S. and very unwise in the opinion of many, was only engaged after very broad public support had been established and Congress provided an affirmative vote for authorizing military force.

And...

Regardless of the outcome of the Iran deal, it never should have become reality like this, and it never should again. Voters should demand that every presidential candidate for 2016 promise to work with Congress to a reasonable extent when conducting foreign policy, rather than using international institutions to pull a fast one on the American people.

COMMENT:  Dead on.  The Democrats are now driving to get enough support for the deal in the Senate to block an up-or-down vote on the deal.  It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, and the opponents of the agreement may not get those votes.  If they don't, a determined Dem leadership, encouraged by the White House, can actually block a vote on one of the most important foreign-policy initiatives of our time.  It's hard to believe the Democrats would want to look this bad, but the party seems devoted only to the greater glory of Barack, and not to anything else.

September 3,  2015