US Politicians Cross Swords As Iran Nuclear Talks Reach Endgame

In a tweet on Wednesday, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said, “Voices from the US government show that there is no coherence in the country to make political decisions in the direction of advancement in the Vienna Talks”.

He added that “the US administration cannot pay for its internal disputes by violating Iran's legal rights”.

Shamkhani’s comments were in reaction to Republican senators warning that they would work to thwart any new Iran deal if President Joe Biden did not allow Congress to review and vote on any new nuclear deal with Iran.

Led by Senator Ted Cruz, a long-time opponent of the nuclear deal, the senators told Biden in a letter on Monday that they would use "the full range of options and leverage available" to ensure that his government adhered to US laws governing any new accord with Iran.

Republican lawmakers have been warning Biden from the early days of his administration when he criticized his predecessor’s decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive plan of Action (JCPOA) and begin talks with Iran to restore the agreement.

Republicans have argued that the JCPOA was a weak arrangement that did not prevent Iran from ultimately acquiring nuclear weapons and did not cover other issues, such as Tehran’s ballistic missiles and its aggressive regional policies through its proxies.

Several media outlets, including Fars News, cited an “informed source” in the ministry refuting claims on social media platforms that Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had written to Ali Khamenei to complain about interference in the Vienna talks.

This was probably a response to a claim on the Chand Sanieh website Tuesdaythat Amir-Abdollahian had written a letter to complain that Saeed Jalili, the former top security official 2007-13 who led nuclear talks with Europe, was damaging the process underway in Vienna to revive the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

According to Chand Sanieh, an unnamed "revolutionary" social media channel recently claimed that the foreign minister had "seriously complained" to Khamenei, in written form and verbally, about the attacks of the so-called "Jalili Group" on the negotiation team and accused them of "creating hurdles" in the ongoing nuclear talks in Vienna to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iranian media had reported a long letter from Jalili, a veteran conservative, to Khamenei expressing opposition to the Vienna talks. While some have suggested Jalili has kept a distance from the negotiators, Ali Bagheri-Kani, the lead negotiation, has been described as a Jalili ally.

Dumping Bagheri

In a commentary asking "Will Jalili Dump Bagheri?," the reformist Shargh daily February 1 claimed Jalili had proposed in the letter that Iran boost uranium enrichment to 90 percent –considered ‘weapons grade’ – as a means to negotiate the lifting of United States ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, with Russia and China meanwhile blocking any moves to restore United Nations sanctions.

Shargh quoted its own "informed source" that Jalili had written his missive after failing to convince Amir-Abdollahian and Bagheri-Kani to leave the Vienna talks.

In a speech Tuesday to Basij militia students, Jalili said he was often in correspondence with Khamenei and had written six months ago to criticize the Hassan Rouhani government's approach to the nuclear talks. He said that making a controversy of his known opposition to the talks "when the enemy has confessed its defeat" amounted to sedition.

The Vienna talks face opposition in the US as well as in Iran. During his first classified debriefing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, President Joe Biden's Iran envoy Robert Malley faced questioning from Republicans slamming last week’s decision to reinstate US sanctions waivers ‘allowing’ foreign firms to carry out non-proliferation work on Iran’s nuclear program.

One Republican, Claudia Tenney, said she was left with "more questions than answers" and demanded Malley immediately testify in an open setting on what exactly the US was offering Iran in the Vienna talks. The Biden administration has said it will lift US sanctions incompatible with the JCPOA if Tehran restricts its nuclear program to JCPOA limits, including a 3.67 percent cap on uranium enrichment.

Negotiations that started ten months ago in Vienna have made little progress and US official say the current round of talks that started on Tuesday are crucial to see if an agreement is possible.

Iran left the negotiations in June for five months, saying its new president needed time to organize his government, as it continued to enrich uranium and increase leverage. US and Western diplomat began issuing warnings about time running out six months ago, but they did not set a deadline on the negotiating process.

One official speaking to CNN said, "We made progress narrowing down the list of differences to just the key priorities on all sides. And that's why now is the time for political decisions.”

They were hints that end of January would be the deadline to make a breakthrough, then mid-February was mentioned and now officials are setting end of this month as a possible cutoff date when Washington has to make a decision about continuing the talks.

US lawmakers are increasingly questioning the administration's strategy in holding talks with Iran.

CNN said that a failure to salvage JCPOA would be considered “a major blow” to President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

With talks paused January 28 for “political consultations,” Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated to the Iranian (IRGC) Revolutionary Guards cited a source “close to the Iranian delegation” that Tehran had taken the necessary political decision and that the US needed to do the same.

Reiterating Iran’s demand that the US remove all sanctions imposed under ‘maximum pressure’ since 2018, when the US left the 2015 deal (the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Monday that “the latest texts obtained from the Vienna talks” failed to address “parts of our demands for the lifting of sanctions.”

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s lead negotiator and its ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the talks were “five minutes” from a finishing line. “A draft of the final document has been crafted,” he said. “There are several points there that need more work, but that document is already on the table.”

Rob Malley, the White House Iran envoy leading the American team taking part indirectly in Vienna, told the US station MSNBC Friday that negotiators had not reached agreement on central issues, such as exactly which US sanctions should be lifted and how Iran would again bring its nuclear program within JCPOA limits.

Led by Senator Ted Cruz, a long-time opponent of the 2015 nuclear deal, the senators told Biden in a letter dated Monday that they would use "the full range of options and leverage available" to ensure that his government adhered to US laws governing any new accord with Iran.

Republican lawmakers have been warning Biden from the early days of his administration when he criticized his predecessor’s decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive plan of Action (JCPOA) and begin talks with Iran to restore the agreement.

Republicans have argued that the JCPOA was a weak arrangement that did not prevent Iran from ultimately acquiring nuclear weapons and did not cover other issues, such as Tehran’s ballistic missiles and its aggressive regional policies. They have also argued that restoring the JCPOA would mean lifting tough economic sanctions and providing a lifeline to the Islamic Republic, which is in an economic crisis since Trump imposed sanctions.

Last week, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was the first senior Democrat to express his opposition to Biden’s Iran policy in a long speech on the Senate floor.

Menendez and republicans asked the administration to inform Congress about the talks with Iran. US Special Envoy for Iran and chief negotiator Rob Malley will reportedly brief the House of Representatives on Tuesday and the Senate on Wednesday via video link.

Indirect talks in Vienna between Iran and the United States on reviving the 2015 agreement are due to resume on Tuesday. Talk of a possible agreement has driven oil prices lower, with markets anticipating that the possible removal of sanctions on Iranian oil sales could boost global supplies.

Iran later breached many of the deal's nuclear restrictions and kept pushing well beyond them.

Cruz and other senior Republican senators told Biden that implementation of any new deal would be "severely, if not terminally hampered" if he did not meet statutory obligations aimed at ensuring congressional oversight over revisions or changes to the 2015 Iran nuclear accord.

They provided no details about their plans, but Republicans have used various tactics to slow down other legislation or put holds on Biden's nominees, including many for ambassador posts.

Democrats control the 50-50 Senate only by virtue of a tie-breaking vote that can be cast by Vice President Kamala Harris, but they could lose control of the Senate and the House of Representatives in mid-term elections later this year.

The senators said any nuclear agreement with Iran was of "such gravity for U.S. national security" that it would by definition be a treaty requiring the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate, they argued.

Any deal that fell short of Senate-ratified treaty would "likely be torn up in the early days of the next presidential administration," they added, anticipating a Republican victory in the 2024 presidential race.

In addition, they noted that a 2015 law passed before completion of the initial nuclear deal requires that any new “agreement” related to Iran’s nuclear program to be transmitted to Congress for a 60-day review period during which Congress could pass a joint resolution of disapproval that would essentially prevent the deal from going into effect.

It said those mandates would be triggered by Iran's progress toward developing a nuclear weapon over the past year, which would require new oversight measures.

With reporting by Reuters