A striking feature of the debate raging among American politicians over the Iran nuclear agreement is the virtual absence of references to international law. Republican presidential candidates compete as to who among them, if elected president, would be quickest to renounce the agreement, as if the United States were utterly free to do as it pleases without consequences.
Democrats, including President Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, apparently also take for granted that it is within American power to kill the deal. During his recent grilling by Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry predicted that if Congress passed a resolution against the deal and then overrode a presidential veto, the deal would be dead and Iran would then sprint toward a nuclear bomb, triggering an attack by Israel and igniting a catastrophic new war into which the United States might irresistibly be drawn.