Last Friday, President Obama and British Prime Minister Cameron appealed to Congress at a joint press conference to back off on plans for more sanctions on Iran. It’s not clear whether any but the most fervent Obama loyalists were listening to their pleas but there was one party that heartily endorsed their position: Iran. As Agence France Presse noted, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif said on Saturday night that the talks would succeed if only the “Western countries” would “stop with the pressure” on the Islamist regime. That quote would be considered comical if it didn’t seem to dovetail so nicely with the president’s approach, which seems to prioritize the illusory chances for détente with Tehran while seeking to prevent Congress from strengthening his hands in the negotiations.
Fortunately, the Senate doesn’t appear to be listening to the president’s warnings or Zarif. A bipartisan bill proposing new sanctions on Iran sponsored by Senators Mark Kirk and Robert Menendez has already been drafted (the text can be read here) and will be submitted to the Senate Banking Committee. The key point to remember about this proposal is that the bill doesn’t immediately impose increased sanctions but rather holds them in abeyance until after the current talks fail. All they would do then is to remind Iran of the consequences of their failure to negotiate a deal that even Obama could accept.
Why, then, is the president opposing a measure that would only make an outcome that he supports more rather than less likely? The only answer is that he genuinely seems to fear ruffling the feathers of Iran’s Islamist dictators. Though his rhetoric on Iran’s nuclear threat was always exemplary, he has discarded the tough talk that characterized his statements about the issue when he was running for reelection in 2012 when he vowed that any deal would result in the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. That went out the window with the interim nuclear deal signed in November 2013 when the West tacitly recognized Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and allowed its infrastructure and stockpile to stay in place. That agreement was supposed to be followed by a strictly limited six months of talks, but they have since been extended twice with no end in sight. Yet even now, a year after he successfully persuaded Congress (with the help of former Majority Leader Harry Reid who buried an earlier Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill despite the support of a veto-proof majority of both houses), Obama is still singing the same tired tune about not alienating the Iranians and Western allies who are uncomfortable with more sanctions.
But since the president’s goal appears to be a warming of relations with Iran, he thinks anything that pushes them too hard will make it more difficult to conclude even another weak deal. This talk about offending the sensitive feelings of the ayatollahs rings false. As the Washington Post noted in an editorial endorsing more sanctions, the president’s pleas for more patience with the Islamist regime comes not only after the Iranians announced the construction of two new nuclear plants but also after the regime sent the case of Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaiain to a Revolutionary Court for “processing” on some bogus charges that have yet to be announced. Rezaiain has been imprisoned for six months. But as the Post correctly notes, if this unjust treatment of an American citizen is not considered enough of a provocation for Washington to cut off talks with Tehran, then it is impossible to credibly argue that a proposal for potential sanctions would make an agreement impossible.
Nor is there any weight to the argument that the president can always ask for more sanctions if the talks fail.
First, given his decision to keep extending the talks despite his pledges not to do so, there seems little chance that he will ever concede failure and respond appropriately to the Iranian refusal to give up their nuclear ambitions. It should also be noted that despite the president’s boasting of having imposed the sanctions on Iran that brought them to the table, the Obama administration has consistently opposed proposals for restrictions on doing business with the Islamist regime including the ones that are now in place.
So long as this president is more concerned with the illusory chance to, as he stated last month, “let Iran get right with the world” than with preventing them from becoming, at best, a threshold nuclear power, Tehran knows he will never pressure them in a way that will convince them that the West can’t be waited out. Until Zarif starts fearing pressure rather than endorsing Obama’s opposition to it, the Iranian threat won’t be defused. That’s why Congress must act now. Menendez stood up and challenged the president on Iran policy in a meeting with Democratic senators last week. With veto-proof majorities for more sanctions ready to vote for it, the rest of the Senate should show the same courage. The Kirk-Menendez bill should be passed as soon as possible.
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