Suppose back in 2008 President George W. Bush had wanted to tie Barack Obama’s hands in Iraq. Did President Bush have the legal authority to sign an agreement with the Prime Minister of Iraq promising that the United States would keep 100,000 troops in his country for twenty years no matter what his successors or future Congresses might think? He clearly did not, and Congress would have rightly considered such an agreement an abuse of Presidential authority and have treated it as non-binding.
The Constitutional problem therefore isn’t that Congress is trying to micromanage the President; the problem is that the President is trying an end run around Congress on a matter of the greatest importance. President Obama has the right to conduct whatever policy he wishes towards Iran as long as he stays within the bounds of American law; he cannot, however, bind future Presidents and Congresses unless the legislative branch weighs in. Writing a letter to the Supreme Leader of Iran might not have been the best or the most tactful way to make the point, but Senators have an obligation to their institution and to the Constitution to uphold their right to review long term international commitments made in America’s name.
The best way out of the potential deadlock would be for the President and the Secretary of State to work directly with key Senators who can command the support of the GOP caucus and work to meet their objections. Historians fault President Wilson for failing to bring Republican Senators with him to the negotiating sessions in Versailles and working with people like Lodge (who was anything but isolationist) to find an approach to the Treaty that they could support. People praise Truman for reaching out and working with key Republicans to get their support for the Marshall Plan.
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