Clearly, Congress has an important role in implementing any comprehensive, final-phase agreement between the P5+1 and Iran to “ensureIran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful.” Those talks are now underway in Vienna.
In that role, members of the Senate and House have a responsibility to support the efforts of the P5+1 on the basis [...]]]>
Clearly, Congress has an important role in implementing any comprehensive, final-phase agreement between the P5+1 and Iran to “ensureIran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful.” Those talks are now underway in Vienna.
In that role, members of the Senate and House have a responsibility to support the efforts of the P5+1 on the basis of a clear understanding and realistic expectation for what the negotiations can deliver and for what is necessary to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
In a letter to the President signed by 83 Senators that was released today by the American Israel Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the members helpfully express their support for the P5+1 negotiations with Iran and their commitment to working with the President “on a bipartisan basis.”
However, the letter outlines a number of ambiguous and, in some cases, factually-challenged statements that undermine the letter’s value as a guide for what might constitute a successful nuclear negotiation with Iran.
Most significantly, the letter begins by stating that “We all hope that nuclear negotiations succeed in preventing Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapons capability.”
Unfortunately, Iran already has a nuclear weapons capability. According to the U.S. intelligence community Iran has had, at least since 2007, the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it were to choose to do so.
Today, Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity can be significantly reduced but not entirely eliminated, even it Iran were required to dismantle its uranium enrichment machines and facilities, as some of the signatories of the Senate letter have argued.
Elsewhere in the Senators’ letter calls for “preventing Iran from ever developing or building nuclear weapons,” which is closer to the stated goal of the Obama administration and the United States’ P5+1 partners.
The conflicting language on this point undermines AIPAC’s assertion that the letter is an “overwhelming demonstration by the U.S. Senate of its determination to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.”
There is a difference between stopping Iran short of “having a nuclear weapons capability” and stopping it short of “building nuclear weapons” — and AIPAC and U.S. Senators should be more careful in their statements about what they are seeking.
The Senators’ letter also suggests that one of the “principles” that the United States should insist on is that “… any agreement must dismantleIran’s nuclear weapons program and prevent it from ever having a uranium or plutonium path to the bomb.”
An similar letter being circulated by Reps. Cantor and Hoyer that is also being pushed by AIPAC in the House includes similar language. That letter expresses the hope that “a permanent diplomatic agreement will require the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear weapons-related infrastructure ….”
How such a principle can or should be implemented in practical terms is not clear. From a technical standpoint, uranium enrichment facilities, virtually any nuclear reactor, or research on such fuel cycle technologies has civil and military applications.
While it is possible to put in place more intrusive inspections to improve the international community’s ability to detect and deter weapons related experiments and the potential diversion of nuclear material to undeclared facilities, the “dismantling” of Iran’s major dual-use facilities and programs would be politically unsustainable in Iran, and is not necessary in order to stop Iran short of building nuclear weapons.
What the negotiations can potentially deliver and what members of Congress should expect and support is a final phase P5+1 agreement with Iran that:
1) establishes verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program that, taken together, substantially increase the time it would take for Iran to break out of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and build nuclear weapons;
2) increases the ability to promptly detect and effectively respond to any attempt by Iran to pursue nuclear weapons, including at undeclared sites and facilities; and
3) decreases Iran’s incentive to pursue nuclear weapons in the future.
As we have written elsewhere, there are realistic options that can address each of the main concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. But if Congress insists on unattainable outcomes or seeks to impose vague requirements on the negotiators, the chances for a diplomatic resolution will decrease, Iran’s nuclear capabilities may grow, and the chances of a conflict will increase.
*This article was first published by the Arms Control Association and was reposted here with permission.
]]>by Jim Lobe
Seemingly overshadowed by the crisis in Crimea and the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu just don’t seem to be getting the kind of momentum in their perennial jihad against Iran that they’re used to coming out [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
Seemingly overshadowed by the crisis in Crimea and the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu just don’t seem to be getting the kind of momentum in their perennial jihad against Iran that they’re used to coming out of AIPAC’s annual policy conference.
It’s true that the more than 10,000 AIPAC activists sent to Capitol Hill to lobby their representatives immediately after the conference May 4 should have been pleased by the House’s passage a day later by a 410-1 margin of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act. It’s been a major priority for the group since last year and one that authorizes $1.8 billion dollars in additional U.S. weapons shipments to Tel Aviv, which already receives on average of about three billion dollars in annual U.S. military aid. It also opens the possibility that Israelis wishing to come to the United States would not require a visa.
But AIPAC’s and Netanyahu’s top priority — getting a new Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill against Iran enacted — clearly moved out of reach six weeks before the conference when all but 16 Democratic senators refused to sign on as co-sponsors and buck their president who had pledged to veto any such bill on the grounds that it risked undermining ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran. With Plan A thus scuttled, AIPAC moved to Plan B, a non-binding resolution that would lay out conditions — several of them clearly unacceptable to Tehran — for any comprehensive deal with Iran which, if not included as part of the deal, would result in Congress’s refusal to fully lift U.S. sanctions. In that case, too, the White House made its strong opposition clear, and the effort quickly collapsed.
That left Plan C — a (necessarily non-binding) letter from lawmakers to Obama — laying out what conditions its authors expected to be included in any final agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. As I described last week, there were actually two letters, both approved by AIPAC: a Menendez-Graham version in the Senate whose harsh tone and demands (a final deal “must require”, etc.) no doubt more accurately reflected the views of both AIPAC’s leadership and Netanyahu than the softer version (“We are hopeful that a permanent diplomatic agreement will require” etc.) that was co-authored by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Leader Steny Hoyer. Both letters were ambiguous on key points — to what extent would Iran’s existing nuclear program have to be dismantled and specifically whether a limited uranium enrichment program would be deemed acceptable – and thus subject to different interpretations.) When the House version was subsequently endorsed by Senate Armed Services Committee chair Carl Levin (and, as I understand it, has since gained the support of more than 20 other Democratic senators, including most of the leadership) precisely because it appeared to give the administration more diplomatic space to negotiate a deal, AIPAC’s leadership was reportedly caught once more on the backfoot. Of course, as I noted last week, the White House still opposes both letters, but the fact that AIPAC’s plans 1, 2, and its preferred version of 3 have all been set back must give the administration considerable satisfaction. (I heard — but cannot confirm — that, at the conclusion of a White House meeting with top AIPAC officials back in early January, one of them told a senior administration official point-blank, “You have to know that we’re going to beat you on this.”)
AIPAC has kept silent on the number of senators who have signed either letter. At first I understood they were trying to persuade senators to sign the Menendez-Graham version only and actively lobby them against the Cantor-Hoyer-Levin letter. But that then embarrassed their allies in the House, so the group began asking — with some success — senators to sign both letters, thus contributing to the growing impression on Capitol Hill that the nation’s most powerful foreign policy lobby simply doesn’t have its act together.
In any event, AIPAC is now actively pushing House members to sign Cantor-Hoyer, which apparently is the best it thinks it can do under the circumstances. As of Wednesday afternoon, according to AIPAC’s tally, 293 members had signed the letter, but 138 — including a surprising number of far-right Republicans, like Michele Bachmann, Joe Barton, and Louie Gohmert, who probably think AIPAC has turned way too mushy — have not. This is now ten days after the end of the AIPAC conference! For an organization whose top lobbyist less than ten years ago bragged that he could get 70 senators to sign on a napkin within 24 hours and which is used to the kind of virtually unanimous votes that took place last week for the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act, this is pretty pathetic. It cannot help that AIPAC got virtually no press during its conference and has gotten some really terrible reviews in Israel, notably one by Gideon Levy (admittedly a peacenik) in Haaretz, which was reposted by M.J. Rosenberg here.
In doing so, however, the group is misrepresenting what the letter actually says. For example, AIPAC says:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) are circulating a bipartisan letter addressed to the President delineating the necessary terms for a final agreement with Iran, including dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.
But the actual letter states:
We are hopeful a permanent diplomatic agreement will require dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear weapons-related infrastructure, including enrichment-, heavy water-, and reprocessing-related facilities, such that Iran will not be able to develop, build, or acquire a nuclear weapon.
Of course, AIPAC is spinning the letter in favor of its hoped-for interpretation, but there is a substantial difference both tonally and literally in what the two statements say.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu appears increasingly and openly frustrated by the lack of attention his histrionics about Iran has been getting. Last week’s seizure by Israeli commandos of the KLOS-C merchant ship in the Red Sea off the coast of Eritrea and Sudan was no doubt timed to immediately follow Bibi’s anti-Iran tirade at AIPAC and his continuing presence in the U.S. He gave vent to that frustration in Eilat this week where he keynoted the display of the captured, supposedly Gaza-bound Syrian-made M-302 rockets which, according to Israel, had been hidden aboard the vessel in Bandar Abbas under sacks of Iranian cement, by fulminating about the “hypocrisy” of the West, especially EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who was then on a visit to Tehran, in not treating the incident with the seriousness that he believed it warranted (as if, for example, there were no “hypocrisy” in a nuclear-armed non-member of the IAEA constantly complaining to the same body about Iran’s nuclear program).
Now, it may be that those rockets were intended for Gaza, although Israel has not yet disclosed any of the evidence on which it based that charge, and most experts who have addressed this issue have expressed considerable skepticism about the Israeli thesis, especially in light of Egypt’s destruction of so many of the tunnels that link the Sinai to Gaza and the military regime’s enhanced intelligence cooperation with Israel on both the Sinai and Gaza since last July’s coup d’etat in Cairo. (Given that cooperation, why wasn’t the shipment intercepted by the Egyptians when it passed through southern Egypt or the Sinai?)
Still, I’m prepared to believe that high-level IRGC hard-liners who, like AIPAC and Netanyahu, are unenthusiastic, to say the least, about Hassan Rouhani’s efforts at rapprochement with the West, may have behind such a shipment, and may even have hoped that it would be discovered, precisely in order to undermine the nuclear talks. (I think Mitchell will be writing more about this question shortly.) But what is so interesting is precisely the lack of interest in Netanyahu’s charges on the part of western — and especially U.S. — mainstream media and politicians. Granted, the Ukraine crisis and the missing airliner are taking up an awful lot of news oxygen these days, but when the Israelis shout really loud, especially about terrorism and Iran, it usually gets attention. Not this time. Writing for Al-Monitor, Ben Caspit wrote an excellent piece about this Tuesday entitled “Israel fears it has lost world attention on Iran.” It seems the world has tired of Bibi and sees him increasingly as the boy who cried wolf, as hinted at in an interesting analysis posted Wednesday by Haaretz’s editor, Zvi Bar’El.
On the other hand, consider this colloquy at yesterday’s State Department press briefing. The final sentence is a little worrisome:
QUESTION: Can we go to Iran?
MS. PSAKI: Sure.
QUESTION: Your counterpart at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Marzieh Afkham, described the whole ship episode and the press conference that took place – the ship that was allegedly going to Hamas – as a farce. And she described it in very graphic terms like Mr. Netanyahu is trying to sort of complicate whatever efforts you’re having in the negotiations. Could you comment on that?
MS. PSAKI: I would stand by the comments I made yesterday about the ship containing Iranian weapons. I spoke extensively to that yesterday. So I don’t have any –
QUESTION: Okay.
MS. PSAKI: — I think the facts are the facts in this case.
QUESTION: So let me ask you again. You have your own evidence, your own gathered evidence that this ship was laden with arms.
MS. PSAKI: The Israelis are the lead on this.
Photo: Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu at a press conference in Eilat regarding weapons he claims were bound for Gaza by Iranian order. Very few foreign press were reportedly in attendance.
]]>by Jim Lobe
It’s been a difficult annual policy conference for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its hopes of getting Congress to set the toughest possible conditions on any final nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany). As readers [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
It’s been a difficult annual policy conference for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its hopes of getting Congress to set the toughest possible conditions on any final nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany). As readers of this blog know, AIPAC entered the conference, which ran from Sunday through Tuesday, in a rather parlous state as a result of its worst foreign policy setback in a generation; specifically, its failure to muster nearly enough Democrats to gain a veto proof-majority in favor of the Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill that Obama had threatened to veto. Attacked by hard-line neoconservative groups on the right, notably the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) and the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) for sacrificing its devotion to Bibi Netanyahu’s jihad against Iran in the interests of bipartisanship — namely, not unduly alienating Democrats in Congress and thus bolstering J Street — the nation’s most powerful foreign policy lobby found itself in a seemingly dazed and unfamiliar defensive crouch, lacking until the very last moment a coherent lobbying agenda for the 14,000 attendees signed up for the proceedings.
That was bad enough. But the Russian takeover of Crimea made things worse. The event dominated the news throughout the conference, making it virtually impossible for AIPAC to break through the blanket TV news coverage of the Ukrainian crisis. Even Netanyahu’s belligerent remarks delivered to the conferees Tuesday morning, designed to psyche them up for their subsequent shleps up to Capitol Hill, were relegated to the inside pages of major national newspapers.
Even the weather refused to cooperate. The snowfall that blanketed the area Sunday night and Monday morning effectively shut down the government and downtown, closing Congressional offices, making it highly inconvenient — and, in many cases, impossible — for the usual overwhelming majority of members of Congress, who customarily make cameo appearances at the conference to ensure their good standing, to get to the convention center, and generally cast a wintry pall over the three-day proceedings.
(And then, as if to add insult to injury, on Tuesday, the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu keynoted the conference, The Hill newspaper, which basically ignored the proceedings throughout, featured a flattering full-page profile of Jeremy Ben-Ami, while the even more influential Politico published an op-ed entitled “Why AIPAC Needs to Get With the Peace Program” by the J Street founder and president. Ouch!)
Ultimately, aside from Netanyahu’s belligerence (a embarrassingly amount of which was directed against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement), what did AIPAC get on the Iran front? Although the smoke has not yet completely cleared on that question, it seems they got some form of its Plan C (after losing on Plan A — the Kirk-Menendez bill — and never getting any lift from Plan B, a non-binding resolution laying out impossible conditions for a final agreement) — a Congressional letter that the group helped to draft.
There are now, however, two such letters that are being circulated in Congress for signature — one hard-line version supposedly co-written by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Robert Menendez that clearly AIPAC and Netanyahu would prefer; the second, a softer one co-authored by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer. The question is, which version (both have been cleared by AIPAC) will get the most support on Capitol Hill?
As I’ve pointed out, both versions are ambiguous on key points, notably on the critical issue of whether Iran will be permitted — at least by Congress as a condition for lifting sanctions as part of any final agreement between the P5+1 — to maintain a limited uranium enrichment program on its own soil. The best analysis of the difference in both letters and the context in which they have been drafted and presented was provided yesterday in a statement by the National Iranian American Council’s (NIAC) policy director (and fellow-Seattle native), Jamal Abdi. Here it is:
…NIAC has serious concerns with the language in the Senate letter regarding demands for a final deal. NIAC outlined its position on what principles should guide Congressional action regarding U.S.-Iran diplomatic efforts in a recent letter to Congressional leadership that was signed by forty organizations. That letter urged that Congress uphold the JPOA [Joint Plan of Action agreed between the P5+1 and Iran last Nov 24], not issue demands on negotiations that contradict the interim terms or the terms outlined for a final deal in JPOA, and that Congress work with the Administration regarding the need to eventually lift sanctions.The House letter meets those standards. NIAC has minor concerns with the House letter, but will not oppose it and commends the efforts of those in the House who succeeded in securing a more balanced letter.
Unfortunately, the Senate letter does not meet those standards and NIAC therefore opposes the Senate letter.
The Senate letter uses new language to offer old ultimatums that will complicate ongoing negotiations, box-in U.S. negotiators, signal that the U.S. would violate the terms outlined in the JPOA, and serve as an invitation to hardliners in Iran to issue similar escalatory demands that will narrow options for compromise. Sections of the letter will be construed to rule out any final deal in which Iran retains a civilian enrichment program, in contradiction of the Joint Plan of Action. This, in combination with demands regarding dismantlement of infrastructure and facilities, and requiring the deal to have regional implications beyond its scope, can only interfere with the work of U.S. diplomats to resolve key concerns at the negotiating table.
NIAC urges that the Administration and Congress coordinate closely regarding ongoing negotiations and work towards the shared goal of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran and averting a disastrous war. NIAC urges that members of the Senate abstain from signing onto the Menendez-Graham letter and instead consider language that supports the ongoing negotiations towards a final deal instead of adding unnecessary complications.
Thus, in NIAC’s opinion, the House letter is preferable for understandable reasons, although the group doesn’t support it.
Now, the latest interesting development is that Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, who was among the first of the senior Democrats to speak out against the Kirk-Menendez bill, has endorsed the House (Cantor-Hoyer, or C-H) letter and proposed it as a substitute in the Senate for the (Menendez-Graham, or M-G) letter. My understanding is that Levin believes that, despite its ambiguity, the House letter gives the administration the room it needs to negotiate a final agreement that would presumably permit some limited enrichment. If, as expected, other Senate Democrats, such as Banking Committee Chair Tim Johnson and Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein, follow suit, the chances are pretty good that he can get the backing of the majority caucus (although bringing around the 16 Democrats who co-sponsored the Kirk-Menendez bill will be a challenge). And, with Cantor as the chief Republican sponsor of the C-H letter, it’s almost certain that a majority of the House will sign onto that. Especially because, like the tougher M-G letter, the C-H letter has also been blessed by AIPAC.
Thus, as recently three weeks ago, AIPAC was still lobbying hard in the Senate for the Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill, which was clearly designed by its drafters to sabotage the JPOA. When it failed to win at that, it tried briefly to get a resolution that would have set out conditions — known to be unacceptable to Tehran — that a final deal with Iran would have to incorporate, but the Democratic caucus would not go along. Twice rejected, it has been forced to settle for a letter and could very well wind up with the weakest one currently on the table. (See update below)
Moreover, the difference between Netanyahu’s maximalist position — no uranium enrichment, no centrifuges, no nothing — and the House letter endorsed by AIPAC is quite large, and Bibi must be rather upset by the gap. Indeed, his strongest supporters here are very upset.
Now, it bears mentioning that the White House, fearful of their effect on the negotiations and feeling perhaps a bit triumphant after frustrating AIPAC so badly over the last couple of months, opposes both letters, which could prove problematic if and when a final agreement with Iran is reached. While Obama can use his executive authority to ease or waive many sanctions, some sanctions can only be lifted by an act of Congress. Moreover, if Obama relies on his waiver authority, there’s no guarantee that his successor, who could even be a Republican, will continue waiving. As the NIAC statement warns “It is critical that Congress work with the Administration to ensure necessary authorizations are in place to enable nuclear-related sanctions to be lifted, as outlined by the JPOA. Those authorizations do not currently exist.” Thus, the administration’s opposition to Congress expressing its views on the subject could have the perverse effect of alienating key lawmakers whose support will eventually be required to fully implement a final agreement — a point made in an ironic tweet (“Pro-Israel and Pro-Iran Lobbies Agree: Iran Cannot Lift Sanctions Without Congress”) by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Mark Dubowitz, who has long favored waging “economic warfare” against Tehran.
UPDATE: In the battle of the two letters on the Senate side, I understand that the Menendez-Graham version has currently fetched more signatures by a margin of 34-11. The 34 on the M-G side consist of 25 Republicans and 9 Democrats, while the 11 signatories to the Levin (or Cantor-Hoyer) substitute are all Democrats. Two Democrats who did not co-sponsor the Kirk-Menendez bill have signed both letters. I’ve been told that AIPAC is now actively lobbying against the Cantor-Hoyer version, despite the fact that it cleared the letter before the co-authors circulated it. If you have a preference, you should probably call your senator’s office.
]]>by Jim Lobe
With the snow in Washington and Russian moves in Crimea diverting all national news attention away from AIPAC’s ongoing policy conference, I understand House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer are circulating their own AIPAC-approved letter among colleagues for signature. The tone seems [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
With the snow in Washington and Russian moves in Crimea diverting all national news attention away from AIPAC’s ongoing policy conference, I understand House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer are circulating their own AIPAC-approved letter among colleagues for signature. The tone seems a bit more congenial than the Senate version, but the House letter appears to suffer from some of the same ambiguities and uncertainties, notably its insistence that “enrichment-related… facilities” be dismantled as a condition for any deal — a non-starter if interpreted literally — as well as its explicit reference to Iran’s “nuclear weapons ambitions,” which makes an assumption that is not yet supported by the U.S. intelligence community.
It also raises other issues, such as alleged terrorism, and destabilization of Iran’s neighbors, human rights, and the fate of U.S. citizens believed to be detained in or by Iran, but does not relate them specifically to the nuclear negotiations. Also on the plus side is that it suggests there will be no House move to enact prospective automatic sanctions as in the Kirk-Menendez bill, S. 1881, by noting that if Iran violates the Joint Plant of Action or if no agreement is reached, Congress would have to “act swiftly to consider additional sanctions…”
On the other hand, unlike the Senate version, this one concludes by implicitly raising the military option by insisting that “we must keep all options on the table to prevent this dangerous regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.” Such language naturally raises hackles and strengthens hardliners in Tehran.
Here’s the draft in the event you want to weigh in with your congressperson.
]]>Dear Mr. President:
As your partner in developing the broad-based sanctions that – in bringing Iran to the negotiating table – have played an essential role in your two-track approach to encourage Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program, we support your diplomatic effort to test Iran’s willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions and satisfactorily resolve all critical issues concerning its nuclear program.
Iran’s history of delay, deception, and dissembling on its nuclear program raises serious concerns that Iran will use prolonged negotiations as a tool to secure an economic lifeline while it continues to make progress towards a nuclear weapon. Iran’s leaders must understand that further sanctions relief will require Tehran to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon and fully disclose its nuclear activities.
We are hopeful a permanent diplomatic agreement will require dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear weapons-related infrastructure, including enrichment-, heavy water-, and reprocessing-related facilities, such that Iran will not be able to develop, build, or acquire a nuclear weapon. We do not seek to deny Iran a peaceful nuclear energy program, but we are gravely concerned that Iran’s industrial-scale uranium enrichment capability and heavy water reactor being built at Arak could be used for the development of nuclear weapons.
Because we believe any agreement should include stringent transparency measures to guarantee that Iran cannot develop an undetectable nuclear weapons breakout capability, Tehran must fully and verifiably implement its Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, ratify and implement the Additional Protocol, answer pending IAEA questions, and comply with the transparency measures requested by the Director General of the IAEA, as well as with any additional verification and monitoring measures necessary to ensure Iran is abiding by the terms of any agreement. Such measures should include an agreement granting the IAEA necessary access to inspect all suspect sites, including military facilities, and providing an unfettered ability to interview Iranian scientists and personnel associated with Iran’s nuclear program.
As negotiations progress, we expect your administration will continue to keep Congress regularly apprised of the details. And, because any long-term sanctions relief will require Congressional action, we urge you to consult closely with us so that we can determine the parameters of such relief in the event an agreement is reached, or, if no agreement is reached or Iran violates the interim agreement, so that we can act swiftly to consider additional sanctions and steps necessary to change Iran’s calculation.
Finally, although the P5+1 process is focused on Iran’s nuclear program, we remain deeply concerned by Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism, its horrendous human rights record, its efforts to destabilize its neighbors, its pursuit of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and its threats against our ally, Israel, as well as the fates of American citizens detained by Iran. We want to work with you to address these concerns as part of a broader strategy of dealing with Iran.
We are hopeful your two-track strategy will convince Iran to change course and abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. None of us desires military conflict, but as you yourself have acknowledged, we must keep all options on the table to prevent this dangerous regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In what can only be considered a pretty substantial defeat for Bibi Netanyahu, neo-conservatives, and the mainstream Israel lobby here, lobby-led efforts in both houses of Congress to enact some form of new sanctions legislation or resolutions designed to undermine the Geneva nuclear deal before the Christmas recess collapsed over the [...]]]>
In what can only be considered a pretty substantial defeat for Bibi Netanyahu, neo-conservatives, and the mainstream Israel lobby here, lobby-led efforts in both houses of Congress to enact some form of new sanctions legislation or resolutions designed to undermine the Geneva nuclear deal before the Christmas recess collapsed over the last 24 hours. The Cable blog at foreignpolicy.com has most of the essentials, including a copy of the resolution that Majority Leader Eric Cantor was working with Steny Hoyer to co-sponsor and pass before the House adjourns Friday here.
“Mr. Hoyer believes Congress has the right to express its views on what should be included in a final agreement, but that the timing was not right to move forward this week,” Hoyer’s spokesperson, Stephanie Young, told reporters in a statement.
On the Senate side, heavy lobbying by the administration, pressure from other leading Democrats, and grassroots efforts by national peace groups apparently dissuaded Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez, who until today appeared determined to pass new sanctions legislation before the Senate goes home at the end of next week, from co-sponsoring a bill with Mark Kirk which, at the very least, would have imposed new sanctions after the six-month term of the Geneva accord between Iran and the P5+1 unless Obama certified that negotiators were close to final agreement.
“I know I have a been a proponent of pursuing additional sanctions prospectively and in a timeframe beyond the scope of the six-month period of negotiations,” Menendez told reporters. “But I am beginning to think, based upon all of this, maybe what the Senate needs to do is define the end game, at least what it finds as acceptable.”
AIPAC and other leading Israel lobby groups believed since the Geneva deal was sealed that several Congressional avenues were available to undermine, if not kill the deal in its crib before the Christmas break. One was quickly pushing sanctions legislation passed overwhelmingly last July by the House through the Senate Banking Committee and get it quickly to the floor. But the committee chairman, Tim Johnson, ruled out that path earlier this week when he joined other key Democrats, including Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin and Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein, in concluding that now was not the time for new sanctions of any kind. A second channel was to tack on a sanctions amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but Levin and the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, James Inhofe, made clear already last week they determined to move it through pronto with a minimum of fuss.
A final avenue, which is theoretically still open, was for Menendez and Kirk to introduce their own stand-alone bill on the floor at some moment before the Senate adjourns next week. It appears that the lobby’s strategy was to try to get a Cantor-Hoyer resolution passed by a large margin in the House and thus put additional pressure on the Senate to at least act on a Menendez-Kirk bill, a move that would have put Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who controls the calendar, in a very serious quandary. Reid, almost invariably a reliable supporter of the Israel lobby’s positions, also believes in loyalty to a Democratic president and party discipline. Reid could well have indicated his support for Obama, thus signalling to Menendez that forcing the issue could prove very destructive to Democratic unity. But Hoyer’s decision to desert Cantor — apparently communicated to the Majority Leader Thursday morning — clearly foiled the lobby’s strategy of using the House and its Republican majority as a lever to move Reid and the Senate.
In any event, the lobby’s failure to get any sanctions legislation through before the end of the year marks a significant setback for it, the neo-conservatives, and Netanyahu who, in clear defiance of repeated appeals by the administration, never backed off his public calls for more sanctions. In some respects, this marks the third defeat in a row for the neo-cons and the more right-wing leadership of the lobby. They opposed Hagel’s nomination and lost; they supported Obama’s efforts to line up Congressional support for attacking Syria and lost. And they tried hard — much harder than in the Syria case — to get new sanctions legislation before the Geneva deal gathers serious momentum (as it may very likely do by the time Congress reconvenes, primarily through unilateral actions by Iran) and lost.
Moreover, they lost even when they backed off their maximum positions. At the outset, they were pushing for the Senate to pass the House sanctions bill, which was approved by a 400-20 margin. When they realized that was a non-starter, they began pushing for prospective sanctions; that is, those that would automatically take effect if Iran failed to comply with the deal or when the six-month term of the deal ended without a final agreement. Then they fell back to prospective sanctions after six months that would take effect only if Obama acquiesced. But even that couldn’t get sufficient Democratic traction. Their failure demonstrates once again that if a president is determined to win against the lobby — and Obama’s remarks at the Saban Center’s conference last weekend made clear that he was both determined and actually knowledgeable about the subject — he can win.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the battle is over. Far from it. Beginning next month and for at least the following five, neo-conservatives and AIPAC — and their supporters in Congress — will do everything they can to get new sanctions and/or other legislation designed to sabotage the current deal or a final agreement that falls short of Netanyahu’s demands. You can be sure, for example, that January will see the introduction of legislation (see Menendez’s statement above) that will lay out the conditions of an “acceptable” final accord that are guaranteed to be unacceptable to Iran (such as insisting on an end to all uranium enrichment as a condition to lifting major financial or oil sanctions). The administration will find itself in a constant battle to fend off these initiatives and must be prepared to fight as hard as it has in the last three weeks — and it has fought very hard indeed — to prevent Congress from killing prospects for ending 35 years of hostility between Washington and Tehran. It won’t be easy.
Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the latest Congressional budget deal provides three times the amount of money — $284 million — that the administration had requested for funding joint U.S.-Israel defense cooperation in 2014. That’s in addition to the $3.1 billion a year that Israel receives in U.S. military assistance.
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
Hours before the U.S. federal government shutdown, members of the House and Senate from both parties were with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a reception honoring outgoing Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and Minority Leader Steny [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
Hours before the U.S. federal government shutdown, members of the House and Senate from both parties were with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a reception honoring outgoing Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and Minority Leader Steny Hoyer spoke at the event, according to the Times of Israel. Others proudly gushed about their attendance to their constituents via e-mail. The office of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-F), Chair of the House Subcommittee, sent out the following message at 10:34 pm last night:
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, attended Ambassador Oren’s farewell event with Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro and Miami Beach native, and incoming Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. Ambassador Oren was honored by Members of Congress for his years of service to Israel and for his advancing of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Ros-Lehtinen did not mention that she and her Republican colleagues would be shutting down the U.S. government in less than an hour and a half.
Ron Dermer, Israel’s new Ambassador to the U.S., was also introduced to the attending members of Congress at the reception. I discussed the likelihood of Dermer’s new position as far back as December 2012 when I wrote that Oren, who has been Israel’s top envoy to the U.S. since 2009, would be replaced by the American-born neoconservative who helped plan Mitt Romney’s 2012 visit to Israel prior to the U.S. presidential election. Dermer is believed to have convinced Netanyahu that Romney was going to win the election; his appointment is clearly a thumb in Obama’s eye. Not only has Netanyahu appointed another fellow Likudnik as Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., he has also appointed a strongly partisan Republican to the diplomatic post.
But Netanyahu isn’t worried about offending Obama. Despite the fulmination in his UN General Assembly speech on Monday about Israel standing alone against Iran, Bibi’s Gang remains on his side.
The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (SFRC) also hosted its own event with Netanyahu on Sept. 30. Members were photographed with Oren and Netanyahu in a “class photo.” Netanyahu thanked them, according to Julian Pecquet of The Hill, “for their support of bills sanctioning Iran for its nuclear program, and urging them to continue to pressure the Islamic Republic.” Senators from both parties basked in Netanyahu’s praise and reciprocated it with their endorsement of what he had to say:
“Diplomacy without pressure is probably a futile exercise,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “He believes the sanctions are working, and I agree.” Graham said there’s consensus in the Senate to move ahead with a new round of sanctions, which the Senate Banking Committee is expected to take up shortly. The House passed similar legislation by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in July.
“During the meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, senators spoke with a unity of purpose, hopeful for a diplomatic outcome with Iran that leads to a verifiable termination of its pursuit of nuclear weapons program, but resolute that U.S. national security objectives can never be compromised,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the SFRC’s Chair, said in a statement following the meeting. “Our resolve to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapons capability remains unchanged and we will not hesitate from proceeding with further sanctions and other options to protect U.S. interests and ensure regional security,” he said.
Graham and Menendez, two of the Senate’s most vociferous advocates of sanctions against Iran, jointly authored an op-ed in the Washington Post last week in which they declared, “In the coming days, we will be outspoken in our support for furthering sanctions against Iran, requiring countries to again reduce their purchases of Iranian petroleum and imposing further prohibitions on strategic sectors of the Iranian economy.”
(If only Graham and Menendez could apply their bipartisan resolve to convincing the hardliners in the House of Representatives to restore the functioning of the U.S. government.)
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) the SFRC’s top Republican, said Netanyahu gave “very detailed” answers about his views at the meeting. “Like all of us, I don’t think he wants the negotiations to go on forever,” Corker said. He continued: “Obviously letting up on the sanctions is not something any us are interested in. And like all of us, he understands that if there is an agreement it needs to be a full agreement.” The senator declined to state whether Netanyahu requested that the Committee pass more sanctions: “I’m not going to answer that,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee, of which Corker is also a member, decided to delay the consideration of a new package of Iran sanctions until after the mid-month talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany). Reuters reports that the sanctions issue has been slowed by congressional wrangling over the government funding bill that has led to our government’s shutdown. Nonetheless, it occurred to members of the Committee that “deliberately delaying new sanctions” might improve the mood at the talks with Iran in Geneva later this month. Corker is quoted as saying, “There’s been some discussion about whether it’s best right now, while the negotiations are occurring, just to keep the existing ones in place.” Corker also reiterated that Congress remains deeply suspicious of Iran and supportive of tougher sanctions.
Right-wing news sites, and even some elements of the mainstream media, have been echoing the complaints of Tea Party members of the House who are responsible for the current government shutdown, asking why President Obama is so willing to talk to Iran but not to them. As satirist Jon Stewart of the Daily Show pointed out on Monday night, the “why Iran and not us?” talking point doesn’t exactly work in their favor:
You’re not helping yourselves. If it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hardline, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world but not with Republicans, maybe he’s not the problem.
Part of the problem may be the willingness of members of both Houses, and both parties, to spend the hours before a government shutdown hobnobbing with a foreign leader — any foreign leader — and deferentially reveling in his advocacy of a foreign policy prescription that demeans, and seeks to undermine, the diplomatic efforts of their own president.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has his Revolutionary Guards to contend with; Obama’s got Bibi’s Gang in Congress. Which one will prove to be the bigger challenge?
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