Join Daniel Pipes on a
trip to Israel's Negev desert, with side visits to explore the recent
Gaza war. For more information, please click here.
Why the
(toothless) Iran sanctions bill matters
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the first of your
friends to like this.
Nearly all the 54 Republican U.S. senators will vote in favor of the
Kirk-Menendez bill requiring sanctions on Iran if the P5+1 negotiations
fail. President Obama has promised to veto it. Now, the senate is gearing
up for a high-drama vote; will Democrats provide the 13 to 15 votes needed
for a veto-proof majority?
|
Senators Bob Menendez
(D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) co-authored the current Iran sanctions bill.
|
Lost in the shuffle is a little-noticed section of the bill that, if
passed, guts it. The "Draft of
Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015," posted on the website of
Sen. Mark Kirk (Republican of Illinois) contains a "Waiver of
Sanctions." Designed to win the support of skittish Democrats, it also
undermines the bill's goal of forcing Obama's hand in the negotiations.
Section 208 bears quotation in full:
The President may waive the application of any sanction pursuant to a
provision of or amendment made by this title for a 30-day period, and may
renew the waiver for additional 30-day periods, if the President, before
the waiver or renewal, as the case may be –
(1) certifies to the appropriate congressional committees that – (A) the
waiver or renewal, as the case may be, is in the national security interest
of the United States; (B) the waiver or renewal, as the case may be, is
necessary to and likely to result in achieving a long-term comprehensive
solution with Iran; and (C) Iran is not making further progress on its
nuclear weapons program and is in compliance with all interim agreements
with respect to that program; and
(2) submits to the appropriate congressional committees a comprehensive
report on the status of the negotiations toward a long-term comprehensive
solution that includes an assessment of the likelihood of reaching that
solution and the time frame anticipated for achieving that solution.
What's the point, one might ask, of the pro-sanctions side struggling so
hard to attain a veto-proof majority when Obama can negate its provisions
at will? Indeed, he has already made statements along the very lines the
bill requires, notably in his State
of the Union (SOTU) address in January, when he (falsely) claimed that
"for the first time in a decade, we've halted the progress of its
nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material." On the
other side, why does the White House expend so much political capital
stopping this bill when it could let it pass and then kill it by invoking
the waiver?
Why the major combat over what amounts to a symbolic resolution?
In part, it increasingly embarrasses Obama by making him unceasingly
justify the waver every 30 days. But also, as he glancingly explained in
the SOTU, he passionately wants Kirk-Menendez defeated because "new
sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but
guarantee that diplomacy fails … [by] ensuring that Iran starts up its
nuclear program again."
In other words, the Iranian pseudo-parliament
(the Majlis) is warning that the bill's passage – even if its sanctions are
subsequently waived – in itself cancels the existing interim accord and
ends the negotiating process. Iran's foreign minister also declared that
the Majlis
would retaliate against any new U.S. sanctions legislation by ramping up
the nuclear program; and that new sanctions would damage the West's
favorite Iranian politician, President Hassan
Rouhani.
|
The Iranian Majlis sure
looks like a real parliament.
|
With this clever tactic, the Iranians have provoked a grand test of
wills in Washington, turning Obama into their enforcer obliged to tame
Congress; Majlis speaker Ali Larijani has warned that "If Obama can't
solve his problems [with Congress], he himself will be responsible for the
disruption of the negotiations." Rather than tell Tehran to take a
hike, the administration (in keeping with its larger
strategy) fell for this ruse, resulting in a forthcoming Senate battle
royal.
Of course, cajoling Tehran to the negotiating table ignores how the much
Iranians benefited from the last accord, signed in November
2013, and how they expect to do as well in the next one. It also
ignores that, to provide diplomatic cover as their approximately 10,000
centrifuges busily whirl away, they seek ad nauseam negotiations.
|
The cheerful Geneva
negotiators on Nov. 23, 2013. The Iranian foreign minister (the man
without a tie) enjoys the ceremonial center.
|
Is this not reminiscent of the bazaar, where the wily merchant
charmingly cheats the naïve tourist? The stake, however, is not the price
of a Persian carpet but an apocalyptic
rogue regime acquiring and perhaps deploying nuclear weapons.
And so, the toothless Kirk-Menendez bill actually does have real
importance. It needs those 67 votes.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org,
@DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2015 by Daniel
Pipes. All rights reserved.
This
text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral
whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author,
date, place of publication, and original URL.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment