Congress deserves a vote on Iran

If presidents of both parties during the Cold War could submit sensitive nuclear-arms-control agreements negotiated with the Soviet Union to Congress for two-thirds ratification—when atomic doomsday loomed—surely the same can be done today. While congressional review might be unpalatable to the Iranians, as it surely was to the Soviets, we should not ignore our Constitution or suspend our best democratic practices to win agreements with our adversaries.

The great political scientist Edward Corwin observed more than half a century ago that the Constitution is “an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.” It is exactly this struggle between Congress and the president—which is almost as old as our republic—playing out now over a possible agreement with Iran, reflecting the divided and often overlapping lines of responsibility for foreign policy that our Founders assigned to Congress and the president.

Presidents are rarely enthusiastic when Congress asserts itself in foreign policy. But our most successful leaders have recognized the need to win the support, or at least acquiescence, of Capitol Hill for their most ambitious national-security initiatives, because that is one of the best ways to ensure the support of the American people and to make it more likely those initiatives will endure.