President Obama and Iran are learning what it means to enter a deal without the support of Congress. Thumbing his nose at Congress, Obama has touted the nuclear deal with Iran as a great thing for the United States, Iran, and the whole world. He forgot one little tiny fact of the Constitution. The Constitutional scholar slept through the part about Congress being in charge of International Treaties. It does not appear than his phone and pen are going to save this one for his legacy.
As Written by EBRAHIM NOROOZI/AP at Newsweek:
Iran has complained that Washington is preventing the country from rejoining the world economy.
Used clothing, toiletries and gifts worth no more than $100—for a decade, these were among the few Iranian products allowed into the U.S., thanks to crippling international sanctions. But when the Iran nuclear deal went into effect in January, Iran was suddenly allowed to resume exports of its famous Persian carpets and pistachios. Iranians also looked forward to reviving the country’s oil industry and gaining access to tens of billions of dollars in previously frozen petroleum revenues, which would provide a much-needed boost to the economy. Perhaps most important, American officials assured Tehran that foreign investment would return to the country, finally ending Iran’s pariah status. ”As soon as we suspend our major sanctions,” Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator, had said in 2014, “the world will flood into Iran.”
Today, nearly six months after the deal was implemented, Iran is still waiting for those benefits. The country can’t access most of the estimated $100 billion it holds in foreign banks. The reason: U.S. laws, which weren’t included in the nuclear deal, are still highly restrictive. The foreign business hasn’t materialized because big European and Asian commercial banks are afraid they might inadvertently violate those non-nuclear U.S. sanctions and end up facing hefty penalties. Tehran is angry and says Washington is preventing the country from rejoining the world economy.