Obama Has Power to Circumvent Congress on Iran Nuclear Deal

Even strong bipartisan disapproval by Congress of the Iranian nuclear deal won’t stop President Obama from implementing the agreement, so the vote next month is shaping up as a warning to Europe against resuming business with Tehran before the next U.S. president is elected.

On his Senate website though, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Sunday became the highest-profile Democrat to endorse the deal and added that he would attempt to sway other members of his party.

Regardless of Mr. Reid’s vote, clear bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate are lining up against the deal. Even so, Mr. Obama has broad executive authority to ease many sanctions on Iran by himself, analysts say.

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“He’s got enormous power to basically circumvent Congress,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a critic of the agreement. “He always had in mind a plan that would not require congressional approval. It couldn’t be stopped, the way the administration has structured this.”

“He would challenge Republicans to fight him in the courts,” Mr. Dubowitz said. “He would essentially just circumvent that statutory designation and provide significant sanctions relief.”

But the ultimate size of the vote against the agreement will influence European governments and industries about the prospects of U.S. policymakers seeking a tougher deal after Mr. Obama leaves office, Mr. Dubowitz said. Iranians view Europe as the key to their economic recovery.

“There’s going to be a bipartisan vote of disapproval for this deal,” Mr. Dubowitz said. “Sixty percent of the U.S. Congress on a bipartisan basis is going to vote this deal down. The president will go forward with this deal anyway, regardless of how many people vote it down. But he’s gone in 18 months. So the question is how to deter Europeans from rushing back in too quickly.”

European leaders and business chiefs “would be reticent to rush back in if there was a resounding vote of disapproval,” he said.

“They would want to know what the next president is going to do before they found themselves on the wrong end of an enforcement action,” he said. “If you’re a financial institution or a major industrial company, you’re going to be cautious about going back in too quickly, sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into projects and then finding yourself in January 2017 with a new president with a vastly different view of the world from Obama.”

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