‘Bring Back Bricker’

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The New York Sun

“Bring Back Bricker.” That’s a cry we may start hearing if President Obama keeps trying to slide his deal with the Iranian mullahs past the United States Senate.

John Bricker was a former Republican governor of Ohio who, after World War II, went to the Senate. There he tried to get a constitutional amendment passed that would make it clear that the Constitution and American laws trumped international agreements.

The several proposed versions of his amendment triggered a huge debate in the 1950s. The New York Times published at least 11 editorials against them. Bricker lost in the end. But he’s starting to look like a visionary now that an American president is trying to sideline the Senate.

This burst into focus after Tom Cotton, a Republican of Arkansas, and 46 other GOP senators sent their letter to the Iranians, warning that, absent a vote, the Senate couldn’t be bound by any deal Mr. Obama signs with Iran. That brought down on the senators all sorts of derision. (Vice President Joe Biden called it “beneath the dignity” of the Senate.)

Yet it’s starting to look like Mr. Cotton’s letter isn’t as dumb as everyone has been suggesting. For Cotton has managed to draw out the Iranians into boasting about their strategy for entrapping America via “international law.” That gives away their game.

Tehran and Obama are betting they don’t need the Senate. They intend to get the deal “ratified” in the United Nations. Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, loves the idea that the talks involve not just America but all five permanent members of the Security Council, known as the P5+1 (America, Britain, France, Russia and Communist China, plus Germany).

The 47 senators think that the next president can un-do the P5+1 accord? Hah, the Iranians sneer — that would be a “blatant violation of international law,” especially once the Security Council passes a resolution endorsing the agreement.

Iran clearly grasps that this scheme would be fine and dandy with President Obama and the Democratic liberals. The liberals think America already has too much sovereignty, and because the Senate ratified the UN Treaty, we’ll be stuck with what the United Nations does.

They’d do well to study history. Particularly what happened after World War I, when another idealistic Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, was trying to start the League of Nations.

The League was an attempt to launch what the world eventually got with the United Nations. Wilson actually won the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for setting it up. (Funny: Obama got his prize just by promising peace).

Wilson, though, made a mistake: He took the Senate for granted. Working in Paris to formally end World War I, Wilson attached the League of Nations idea to the peace treaty.

And, fearing that any senators involved in the talks might interfere with his plans, Wilson did all the diplomacy on his own, with just a few close aides.

He and his fellow leaders also kept the exact terms secret (like those Secretary of State John Kerry is working on with Iran in Geneva). But the Chicago Tribune’s Paris man, Frazier Hunt, got a copy of the pact. He smuggled it (in his kit bag, it later came out) to the Tribune while the president was still overseas.

To get around the secrecy laws, the Tribune had Idaho’s William Borah read it on the Senate floor. (Borah was safe doing so because the Constitution says no member of Congress can be “questioned” in any other place for something said in either house.)

Once the perfidy of the League of Nations was public, Borah, Henry Cabot Lodge and other Republicans killed the pact in the Senate. Some blame them for World War II, though most of us reckon the real blame rests with Hitler and his Nazis.

The lesson for Obama is that no good can come of a failure to work with the Congress. America is not ruled by a king. There are constitutional checks and balances. At the end of the day, Congress — that is, the people — will dispose.

The idea of a world government didn’t re-emerge until after World War II, when the United Nations was set up. That’s when Bricker launched his ultimately futile campaign.

Now, decades later, Obama is proving Bricker’s point, by pushing exactly the kind of scheme that Bricker feared. In a world every bit as dangerous as ever, Cotton’s letter shows that the Senate’s back is up. So it wouldn’t surprise me if we start hearing calls to “Bring Back Bricker.”

A version of this column first appeared in the New York Post.


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