Midcoast Forum on Foreign Relations

3 Articles by Jack Goldsmith

Posted on Tuesday June 4 2024

“The Middle East and the President’s Sweeping Power Over Self-Defense,” by Jack Goldsmith, Lawfare, October 23, 2023.

The Middle East may be on the verge of large-scale war, and the U.S. military is literally on the firing line. Late last week, the USS Carney intercepted and destroyed three missiles and several drones fired from Yemen even though it did not know where the missiles were headed. “We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched heading north along the Red Sea potentially towards targets in Israel,” said Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder. “This action was a demonstration of the integrated air and missile defense architecture that we built in the Middle East and that we are prepared to utilize whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interests,” he added.

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“Can Biden Sidestep Congress on an Iran Nuclear Deal?” by Jack Goldsmith, Lawfare, June 21, 2023.

The Biden administration might soon reach an agreement of sorts with Iran that would seek, among other things, to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program. A major complication is that the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) requires the president to “transmit” an “agreement” relating to the nuclear program of Iran to Congress, and then establishes a review period during which (a) the president may not exercise his sanctions-waiving authority, and (b) Congress can vote on the agreement. News reports suggest that the Biden team is laying the groundwork to argue that an informal deal with Iran does not constitute an “agreement” and thus does not trigger any reporting duty under the INARA.

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“Presidential Control Over International Law,” by Curtis A. Bradley & Jack L. Goldsmith, Harvard Law Review, Volume 131, March, 2018.

Two of President Barack Obama’s most important foreign policy accomplishments were the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and the Iran Nuclear Agreement, which lifted international and domestic sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons development program. President Obama made both agreements unilaterally without seeking congressional approval. His successor, President Donald Trump, came into office as a critic of the agreements. He, too, acted unilaterally — this time moving to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. He has also claimed the authority to unilaterally terminate the Iran deal, but to date he has not done so, in part because President Obama’s alteration of the status quo makes it difficult to terminate the deal without harming U.S. interests.

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