Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives have bluntly rebuffed Iran’s suggestion of a Congressional guarantee in the event of a nuclear deal.
Nearly 170 House members Wednesday sent a letter to President Joe Biden saying, "We will view any agreement reached in Vienna which is not submitted to the US Senate for ratification as a treaty — including any and all secret agreements made with Iran directly or on the sidelines of official talks — as non-binding."
Both Iran and the United States this week have signaled that negotiations that began last April might be nearing an end.
Republicans have repeatedly called on Biden to return to the 2015 Obama era agreement, since the Administration announced its intention in early 2021 to revive the JCPOA, abandoned by Donald Trump.
Iran has been insisting that Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018 was a violation that can be repeated in the future and the United States must offer “guarantees” it will not happen again. The Biden team has argued that according to the US constitution, the sitting president cannot speak on behalf of a future occupant of the White House, and no such guarantee would be considered binding.
Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in an interview with the Financial Times on Wednesday said that Iran wants to see a “political statement” by the US Congress essentially endorsing any agreement reached in Vienna and pledging not to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.
“As duly elected representatives of American citizens across the United States…we feel compelled to remind you that you do not have the power to provide any such “guarantee.” Indeed, if you forge an agreement with the Supreme Leader of Iran without formal Congressional approval, it will be temporary and non-binding and will meet the same fate as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” the letter said.
The overwhelming majority of House Republicans put forth other stringent conditions that if Iran takes them seriously, it will never agree to a deal.
Above all else is the condition that Tehran dismantles all its uranium enrichment capabilities, something that they did not agree to in the original 2015 agreement. Equally important is the demand that Iran should destroy most of its ballistic missiles.
Moreover, the House Republicans, who most likely will receive full support from their Senate comrades, say in the letter that they would oppose any sanctions relief unless Iran “verifiably halted all sponsorship of terrorism, released all American hostages and paid U.S. federal court judgements owed to the American victims of terrorism sponsored by the Iranian regime.”
In the end, the signatories expressed their support for Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran which was imposed his withdrawal from the JCPOA. “We urge you to change course, learn from the first JCPOA’s failures, and work with Congress to impose maximum pressure on the Iranian regime,” they told President Biden.
The Administration recently has been publicly condemning the Trump policy that it blames for the current crisis with Iran. Iranian officials have been quick to quote Biden officials in arguing that the United States has broken international law and its measures against Iran have been defeated.
It is not clear how much support the Republicans can expect from Democrats in Congress, but a leading Senate Democratic leader and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez early this month expressed deep concerns over the Biden Administration’s negotiating strategy with Iran.