Sen. Corker is wrong on Iran deal

In the morning-after fog of the first GOP debate, the only person looking more petulant and pouty than Donald Trump is Tennessee Repubican Sen. Bob Corker.

Our normally level-headed senator, in his overstated indignation over President Barack Obama's remarks Wednesday about the Iran deal, doesn't seem able to see the war forest for the partisan trees.

Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged Thursday during one of his committee hearings that President Obama is trying to "shut down debate" on the nuclear agreement.

Really? After years of hearing Corker and other GOP leaders call him everything from a weakling to a traitor, Obama making his case to the American people is overbearing? Obama on Wednesday ending his hour-plus talk with an appeal to Americans that they write their Congress members and make their feelings about war vs. diplomacy to preempt war is "shutting down debate"? Obama reminding Americans that the United States - the most powerful country in the world - could and would use force if Iran fails to keep its end of the deal is somehow threatening to a Republican Congress that opposes everything the president says and does - even if Obama's effort was a Republican idea first?

"On the other hand, without this deal," the president said Wednesday at American University, "the scenarios that critics warn about happening in 15 years [Iran completing a nuclear bomb] could happen six months from now. By killing this deal, Congress would not merely pave Iran's pathway to a bomb, it would accelerate it."

And no, sanctions alone won't work. They haven't to date, have they? Why is tomorrow and the next day using only sanctions likely to be any different?

Corker on Thursday issued a news release expressing disappointment in Obama's remarks, specifically noting that the president compared members of Congress who have not yet expressed support for the deal to Iranian hardliners who chant "Death to America."

Here's the actual Obama quote: "But superpowers should not act impulsively in response to taunts or even provocations that can be addressed short of war. Just because Iranian hardliners chant 'Death to America' does not mean that that's what all Iranians believe. In fact, it's those hardliners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It's those hardliners chanting 'Death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal. They're making common cause with the Republican Caucus."

Then Corker pulled out his own hyperbole, saying the administration hasn't shared documents outlining the International Atomic Energy Agency's role in implementing the nuclear agreement because the side deals would not "stand the test of late-night comedy."

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said those documents may not be released under confidentiality pledges.

Corker said he wanted to "put things into perspective."

He certainly has. And that perspective is clearly just more grandstanding and more GOP rhetoric.

The reality is that the U.S. has nothing to lose and everything to gain by seeking diplomatic means to stop another unstable country from becoming a nuclear power. The button to start a war is always handy. The means of preventing war is harder to find. And the path to stopping a war is even more elusive.

Write your Congress members. Especially Sen. Corker.