Michael Krepon and Melanie Campbell explain that the U.N. Security Council vote to endorse the Iran deal today doesn’t impinge on Congress’ ability to review it:

These UN votes do not prejudge or violate in any way the Congress’s role in considering the merits and weaknesses of the Iran agreement. Implementation of this deal will only follow the process of Congressional review negotiated between Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Corker and Ranking Minority Member Cardin with the White House.

This is correct. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning on the terms of the resolution:

The resolution’s many provisions won’t come into effect for 90-days to give the U.S. Congress time to review the deal, a point of contention between the White House and Capitol Hill.

Congress will get its 60-day review period under the Corker-Cardin legislation, and it is very likely that both houses will pass resolutions of disapproval that Obama will then veto. That is what would have happened if there had been no Security Council vote, and it is what will happen now that there has been one. Insisting that Congress should get to “go first” before the Security Council votes on one of its own resolutions regarding a deal negotiated by the Council’s permanent members is a ridiculous bit of self-important posturing by members of Congress. It is all the more so since it is extremely unlikely that the outcome would be any different if the U.N. vote had been put off for months. Contrary to some of the hysterical claims about this that have been made, this does not have the makings of a “constitutional crisis” or anything of the sort. As Krepon and Campbell point out, previous presidents have sought Security Council resolutions ahead of Congressional votes to authorize military action, so it is not inappropriate to do the same in this case.