Secretary of State John Kerry
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State John Kerry dropped a quiet bombshell on an unsuspecting Democratic congressman who appeared to believe he was asking a routine question at the House Foreign Affairs committee hearing on the Iran deal Tuesday.
“Let’s say Congress doesn’t take your advice, we override a veto, and the law that’s triggered then imposes certain sanctions,” asked U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif.
“Will you follow the law even though you think it violates this agreement clearly and even if you think it’s absolutely terrible policy?”
Kerry then refused to assure the congressman that President Obama and his administration would follow the law if Congress rejects his Iran deal.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif.
Instead, he replied, “I can’t begin to answer that at this point without consulting with the president and determining what the circumstances are.”
A seemingly shocked Sherman responded, as though he maybe he hadn’t heard correctly, “So, you’re not committed to following the law?”
“No, I said I’m not going to deal with a hypothetical, that’s all,” said Kerry, leaving the door wide open to the possibility the president would just ignore the law.
The secretary of state unloaded another bombshell when he admitted Iran may use the eventual lifting of an arms embargo under the treaty to kill Americans.
He was asked if the Iranians “will use the conventional weapons made available by the Iran nuclear treaty to kill Americans or Israelis?”
“Well, they may,” flatly admitted Kerry.
“They may. And we have, as you know, responded to that from 1979 when they took over our embassy forward, we have put sanctions in place specifically because of their support for terror.”
Peppered with skeptical questions by both Democrats and Republicans, Kerry also engaged in what might appeared to be revisionist history in defending Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Kerry warned the danger of Congress not approving the treaty would be allies could no longer trust the word of the United States, and that rejection of such deals was “not the traditional relationship that has been between the executive (branch) and the Congress.”
Actually, the Senate has rejected 21 treaties, some of them twice.
That included the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I, which the United States never ratified.
The Senate has approved more than 1,500 treaties during the course of American history, but, an untold number were killed by purposeful neglect, left to die in committees without any action taken.
According to the U.S. Senate website, the preferred method to kill unpopular treaties has been simply to not bring them up for the votes. The website does not mention how many times that has happened.
Kerry might claim he was talking about deals, not treaties, but the only reason the Iran deal is not a treaty is because Obama refused to submit it as one, likely out of fear it would not garner the support of two-thirds of the Senate needed for ratification.
Critics have blasted the administration for not classifying the biggest arms control deal in history as a treaty.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-WIsc.
During a review of the deal by Senate Foreign Relations on Thursday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., bluntly told Kerry the administration had “undermined Congress” by calling it a deal and not a treaty.
Kerry simply replied, “This is a deal.”
“It’s much more than that,” shot back Johnson.
The Constitution specifies that international treaties must be approved by two-thirds of the Senate, but Obama has controlled the semantics of this issue, deliberating defining it as a “deal.”
Thus, he claimed, the historic nuclear deal did not require congressional approval.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.
To attempt to counter that, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., sponsored a bill that requires the administration to get congressional approval for the deal.
However, if Congress rejects the deal, Obama could simply overrule that objection by vetoing the bill.
That means, the burden of proving the merit of the deal had shifted from the president to Congress.
Instead of the deal requiring two-thirds of the Senate to approve the deal, it will now take two-thirds of Congress to stop the deal, in the form of overriding a presidential veto.
Congress has 60 days to review the agreement.
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