In a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, 47 senators explained that unless Congress approves whatever agreement is made between President Obama and Iran, the next presidential administration is free to revoke it. Critics have responded with outrage, and even accusations of treason. But, writes Elliott Abrams, Congress has both a right and a duty to exercise a role here, especially if it can prevent the president from making a bad bargain:

Iran is likely to cheat on any deal. Its nuclear record is one of lying and obfuscation, developing secret facilities that are only discovered years later, and violating the promises it has made and the Security Council resolutions that are supposed to be binding.

It may well be that if this deal is done, a year or two or three down the road there will be evidence that Iran is cheating—and moving ever closer to a bomb. Our nation will then need to make a difficult decision about Iran policy, including consideration of possible military action. We ought to arrive at that moment, and that decision, as united as we can be, including the executive branch and the Congress.

As the old saying goes, if Congress is going to have a role in the crash landing, it should have a role in the takeoff. The Constitution grants it that role, and so does any sense of how our national security should be protected.

Robert Clark explains why the resumption of hostilities is both just and necessary:

These latest Israeli strikes come after weeks of consistent Palestinian provocation; they have repeatedly broken the terms of the cease-fire which they claimed they were so desperate for. There have been numerous [unsuccessful] bus bombings near Tel Aviv and Palestinian-instigated clashes in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in captivity.

In fact, Hamas and their Palestinian supporters . . . have always known that they can sit back, parade dead Israeli hostages live on social media, and receive hundreds of their own convicted terrorists and murderers back in return. They believed they could get away with the October 7 pogrom.

One hopes Hamas’s leaders will get the message. Meanwhile, many inside and outside Israel seem to believe that, by resuming the fighting, Jerusalem has given up on rescuing the remaining hostages. But, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, this assertion misunderstands the goals of the present campaign. “Experience within the IDF and Israeli intelligence,” Ben-Yishai writes, “has shown that such pressure is the most effective way to push Hamas toward flexibility.” He outlines two other aims:

The second objective was to signal to Hamas that Israel is not only targeting its military wing—the terror army that was the focus of previous phases of the war up until the last cease-fire—but also its governance structure. This was demonstrated by the targeted elimination of five senior officials from Hamas’s political and civilian administration. . . . The strikes also served as a message to mediators, particularly Egypt, that Israel opposes Hamas remaining in any governing or military capacity in post-war Gaza.

The third objective was to create intense military pressure, coordinated with the U.S., on all remaining elements of the Shiite “axis of resistance,” including Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas, and Iran.