All this talk about Iran never having nuclear weapons is yet another American stab at making the world even safer for Israel. If the threat of Iranian nuclear and ballistic capabilities were to be eliminated, Netanyahu would become even more unrestrained.         

Let’s face it – the nuclear talks between Iran and the U.S. scheduled for Saturday, April 12, in Oman are not as much between Iran and the United States as they should be seen between Iran and Israel, with the Americans playing the role of an intermediary. What is not acceptable to Netanyahu will not be acceptable to Trump. Full stop!

On April 7, 2025, in the company of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the U.S. President Donald Trump stated that Iran must never have nuclear weapons. If the IRI is to be believed, Iran does not have nuclear weapons and at least in the recent decades has not gunned for it either, but it has managed to advance its nuclear technology to a level that it could produce weapon-grade material within a short enough time to raise international concern. Never mind that it was Trump who pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was inked in July 2015 between the IRI and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, U.K., U.S., and Germany) and the European Union, to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Never mind that Iran at the time of the pullout in May 2018 was abiding by the terms of the deal and accordingly reduced, dismantled, and ceased certain nuclear activities as called for in the agreement, including shipping stockpiles of its enriched uranium to Russia.

Already the optics for the Oman Talks is not good. First, in the same sitting with Netanyahu in the Oval Office, and on previous occasions as well, Trump has threatened Iran with military strikes if IRI does not negotiate or come to agreement with the U.S. over its nuclear program. Second, the IRI will be sending its foreign minister Abbas Araghchi while the U.S. is sending its Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to Oman, not exactly a meeting of equals. If the U.S. were as serious about these talks as it claims to be then Secretary of State Marco Rubio should head the U.S. contingent, a person with some modicum of foreign policy experience.         

In May 2015, a few months before the inking of the JCPOA, I wrote a piece titled “The Iran Nuclear Agreement: Must it be an Article II Treaty?”  https://iroon.com/irtn/blog/6041/the-iran-nuclear-agreement-must-it-be-an-article-ii-treaty/ (March 12, 2015), in which I pointed out the complications of the U.S. constitutional system when it comes to international agreements and the risks that it entails for the foreign counter-party. I noted also that 47 U.S. Senators had written an open letter addressed to the Leadership in Iran, saying any agreement between the U.S. and Iran over its nuclear program, without Congressional say, can be invalidated with the stroke of a pen by a future President or by US legislation.

When the U.S. Constitution was offered for ratification by the states, some criticized the notion that a treaty negotiated by the President and approved only by the Senate, leaving out the House of Representatives, could not be the supreme law of the land like laws that are passed by both legislative assemblies. The critics insisted that treaties, like acts of assembly, should be repealable at pleasure. 

I closed that article with a quote from John Jay, the would-be fist Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: “These gentlemen would do well to reflect that a treaty is only another name for a bargain, and that it would be impossible to find a nation who would make any bargain with us, which should be binding on them absolutely, but on us only so long and so far as we may think proper to be bound by it.” The Federalist Papers (No. 64). 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Medellin v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491 (2008) has invalidated the long-held principle that advice and consent of the U.S. Senate makes a treaty the law of the land. And so in order to be the law of the land an international treaty apparently requires an enabling statute, which requires the approval of both chambers of the Congress and the signature of the President.

Any agreement between the U.S. and Iran on the nuclear issue and any agreement attendant upon or related thereto must be (1) approved by the U.S. Senate under its “advice and consent” powers; (2) approved by the U.S. House of Representatives; (3) signed by the President as a matter of law-making procedure; (4) coupled with the legislative repeal of all sanctions-related executive orders and legislative enactments affecting adversely economic, commercial, and financial interactions with Iran and Iranian persons and entities; and (5) coupled with removal of all authority that the Congress has previously delegated to the President for the institution of tariffs and other trade barriers to international trade and investment so that making snapping-back of sanctions of any kind subject to congressional approval.

Given the track record of the United States to play fast and loose with its international obligations (and examples of that are far too many to list), as John Jay said, who “would make any bargain with us, which should be binding on them absolutely, but on us only so long and so far as we may think proper to be bound by it.”