A few months ago, the president guaranteed Congress the right to approve or disapprove any accord reached with Iran. Now, despite his solemn declaration to the contrary, it seems he’s planning to sideline Congress altogether. Fred Siegel and Sol Stern write:

Throughout the international negotiations, the White House has essentially served as Iran’s lawyer; now the administration’s rhetoric has created an insuperable dilemma for opponents of the deal. [John] Kerry has not so subtly hinted that the administration has no intention of honoring the commitments it made in signing the bill authorizing congressional review. Kerry’s comments suggest that no matter what happens in Congress, the administration will feel little obligation to carry out the wishes of the people’s representatives on the most important national-security issue of our time.

Should two-thirds of both houses override a presidential veto, Obama will likely ignore Congress, waive sanctions by executive decree, and leave Iran on the threshold of achieving a bomb. And if Iran does decide to pursue a nuclear breakout, nothing Congress does will likely convince Obama to use a credible threat of force to restrain the mullahs. But Obama will certainly blame Congress and particularly the Republicans for this national-security catastrophe of his own making.

The best that can probably be achieved by opponents of this disastrous agreement is a moral victory that embarrasses the president and provides an opportunity to regroup. A strong anti-Obama showing in the Senate that falls just short of the two-thirds majority could serve as a rebuke to his imperial presidency and a warrant for a new president to reconsider the agreement. But for the time being, Obama has undermined the Constitution and the Congress, even as he has empowered Iran, Assad, and Hizballah.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.