Shady Moves in Washington

Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran has cleared all the legislative hurdles in the U.S. Congress. One can say that, but it’s not strictly true. Because of legal and other often used tricks, the Senate won’t even vote on it. The Democrats won’t allow it.

What happened in the House of Representatives is even stranger. There, in a total about-face, the Republicans plan to vote for the deal, not against it. It has no chance of passage there in any case and is meant only to show the Democrats who are obliged to vote for it a preview of what will be used to attack them in the 2016 election.

But that’s such a complicated idea that hardly anyone believes it can catch on with voters. For the nuclear agreement, the lack of votes in the House doesn’t present a problem. It would only become a problem if it fails to make it through the Senate — which isn’t voting on it in any case (see above).

With such procedures it’s easy to understand why many voters, especially Republican voters, are at odds with their Washington leaders. The latest surveys showed that 55 percent of Republican voters prefer three candidates who have never held elected office before.

After such a debacle suffered by the opposition, the casual observer might well assume that President Barack Obama would be at liberty to go forward with the nuclear deal. Not even close. The Republicans plan to wait until the last day, Sept. 17, to call off their opposition to the bill, including using legal means that have little chance of success. The New York Times says that’s designed to please other opponents of the agreement — above all, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the conservative lobby group American-Israel Public Affairs Committee which will spend large sums in the upcoming U.S. election.

According to The New York Times, “Iran’s supreme leader predicted Wednesday that Israel would not exist in 25 years, and ruled out any new negotiations with the ‘Satan,’ the United States, beyond the recently completed nuclear accord.”

While his contempt is well known, it should not influence the analysis that the deal will enhance security in the region. That is a natural outcome of it. But it will be Obama’s responsibility to ensure the provisions of the deal are strictly enforced and that will fall to his successor. Should that be Hillary Clinton, she just said in a detailed speech on the issue that her approach to such an agreement would be to “distrust and verify.”

That’s acting responsibly.