Congress's Phony Anger at UN Over Iran deal

Some in Congress, primarily Republicans, have raised protests over the fact that the United Nations Security Council yesterday approved a resolution supporting the Iranian nuclear pact before either the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate were able to vote on the proposed agreement.

They are furious at the United Nations for, by their lights, poking its nose into American geopolitical decision-making without first waiting for Capital Hill to act. They insist that America will not be subservient to the United Nations when making geopolitical decisions of this nature. But this is a totally specious argument, as evidenced by recent history.

They forget that just 25 years ago in the administration of a Republican president, George H. W. Bush, the UN Security Council voted on November 29, 1990, to pass Resolution 678 authorizing "the use of all necessary means" to expel the army of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

This Council resolution happened almost six weeks before the House and Senate okayed its own U.S. military action. This particular event shows that this is hardly the first time that the Security Council has acted on war and peace decisions before the U.S. Congress itself weighed in.

If it is alright for a Republican leader to send legislation on critical global matters to Congress following a UN edict and get approval, why is it not equally fine for a Democratic president to do so? In both cases, the determination concerned matters of war and peace, though, it must be said, in the Iranian case, it was to avoid war while in the Kuwait case it was to go to war -- a huge difference.