Any nuclear agreement won't be legally binding, according to legal scholars.

Any nuclear agreement won't be legally binding, according to legal scholars.(BI).

This week, lawmakers in both parties continued to debate a possible nuclear deal with Iran, with some leading Senators proposing several legislative options to scuttle or alter any agreement.

But opponents of the deal may be faced with a more fundamental issue since any agreement won't be legally binding, according to legal scholars.

A bill proposed by Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) would require the president to submit a nuclear deal with Iran to the chamber for approval. And although Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell decided not to force a vote on the bill this week, the measure is just one of several weapons the Republican-held Senate could wield against a possible deal.

The Senate could pass additional sanctions that would come into effect if Iran ever cheated on the agreement, or it could hold a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" vote forcing lawmakers to put their stance on the deal on record. And as former US ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey recently argued, the Senate could even preemptively authorize military force to be used in the event that Iran was ever caught developing a nuclear weapons capability.

But the body doesn't have an actual veto over an agreement, despite the premise of Corker's bill. Its power in halting or even complicating an agreement is fairly limited. 

And that's because of one of the more curious yet least commented-upon aspects of the Obama administration's negotiating position: the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) and Iran are not negotiating a legally binding agreement. In fact, the agreement being discussed right now is specifically structured to sidestep the issue of its US domestic legal status.

In October, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration was pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran that would avoid the Senate altogether. 

That means that the deal would technically be an "executive agreement" in which the president reaches an understanding with a foreign government that doesn't require any changes in US law — rather than a treaty, which requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate and could supersede certain laws.

The trouble is that Congress has passed numerous sanctions bills relating to Iran. And while Obama has the right to grant sanctions waivers under certain circumstances, he doesn't have the power to just take them off the books by decree.

"An executive agreement never overrides inconsistent legislation and is incapable of overriding any of the sanctions legislation," says David Rivkin, a constitutional litigator with Baker Hostetler, LLP who served in the White House Counsel's Office in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush Administrations. "A treaty that has been submitted for Senate's advise and consent and if it's self-executing could do that." Hmmmm..........Just trust the Obama 'admin' to come up with such an 'Obamination'. Read the full story here.

!! RT @SenTomCotton: So then what exactly are you doing? RT @joshrogin: Kerry: "We are not negotiating a legally binding plan" with Iran.
— Omri Ceren (@cerenomri) March 11, 2015

You wouldn't be surprised about Kerry re:Iran deal legality if u'd been reading me lately http://t.co/2mDOhNLJm8 and http://t.co/bjFaLVRwKI
— Armin Rosen (@ArminRosen) March 11, 2015

Kerry tells the Senate politely: In order to bypass you we're not making this legally binding | https://t.co/i2CCYXW9CD

— Mike Doran (@Doranimated) March 11, 2015

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