US Lawmakers Urge Biden 'To Walk Away' From Deal With Iran
Groups of US lawmakers have expressed deep concern to President Joe Biden over a potential agreement in Vienna to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA.
Groups of US lawmakers have expressed deep concern to President Joe Biden over a potential agreement in Vienna to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA.
Nine Republicans and 11 Democrats House members in a letter obtained by the Jewish Insider said on Thursday, “it is hard to envision supporting an agreement along the lines being publicly discussed.”
The 20 signatories - led by Republican Tom Reed, and Democrats Josh Gottheimer and Elaine Luria – said they had hoped that “renewed negotiations with Iran would achieve a longer and stronger agreement than the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), with clear nuclear restrictions and provisions addressing Iran’s international terror and missile programs.”
The move came after a group of Republican lawmakers on Wednesday urged Biden not to make a deal in Vienna, saying it would be a big win for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin will make billions in oil and gas transactions, in nuclear transactions and in weapons transactions,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz leading the charge said.
Sen. Jim Risch, (R-Idaho), said the US should walk away from a deal being negotiated by Russia and Iran, “two of our worst enemies on the planet.”
“This doesn't need to be done right now,” Risch said. “And particularly, it doesn't need to be done when we have the problems going on that we have in the Ukraine. We should walk.”
The letter by 20 Representatives opposed “the potential lifting of the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and of the sanctions placed on members of the office of the [Iranian] Supreme Leader.” The measures cited were both introduced by Trump executive orders after his administration withdrew the US in 2018 from the JCPOA.
The signatories said Iran was “the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror,” and that easing sanctions would pave “a clear path for Iranian proxies to continue fueling terrorism,” a reference to Iranian allies deemed ‘terrorists’ by the US, including Palestinian groups and Hezbollah.
Support ‘contingent on answers’
The lawmakers listed 16 questions about the Vienna talks, claiming their support for any agreement in Vienna would “be contingent largely on satisfactory answers to the questions.” They urged President Biden to brief them within the next week.
The questions included whether any agreement would be reviewed by the Congress, something the Biden administration has already ruled out. The lawmakers said they wanted to be told exactly which US sanctions would be lifted, and what Iran’s ‘break out’ time would be – referring to the period required in theory to assemble a crude nuclear weapon, one greatly reduced since early 2021 when Iran began enriching uranium to 60-percent purity.
The Congressmen and women also wanted to know whether Russia might derive any economic benefits (presumably through trade with Iran), whether Russia would return Iran’s nuclear material if it decided the deal has been breached, and whether Russian President Vladimir Putin (presumable rather than mechanisms established under the JCPOA) would be de facto judge of compliance with the agreement.
They also demanded to know what would happen if Iran violated the agreement once the ‘snapback mechanism,’ allowing the reimposition of sanctions on Iran, lapsed in 2025; and exactly how much money Iran would gain from easing sanctions. They also demanded to be informed if the Biden administration would ask Congress to lift other sanctions in 2023, and how US ‘human rights’ policies might be affected by reviving the JCPOA.
"It's a big error to bow to the pressure from America or other powers to secure protection against sanctions, which will deal a blow to the nation's political power," Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in an address to members of the Assembly of Experts.
"Our regional power provides us with strategic depth and more national strength, why should we give it up? Advancement in nuclear science will help us meet the country's needs in the future, who can we turn to a few years later if we give it up now?" he said, adding that there was nothing more "naive and inexpertly" than suggestions to reduce the country's defensive (military) power to "avoid raising the enemy's sensitivity".
"Over time [many] such feeble and faulty suggestions have been made, all of which were revocable, and they were revoked. Iran would be facing great dangers if those who wanted to sever some of the arms of national power were allowed to do so," he said in a rather uncompromising tone.
In his speech Khamenei cited “security and defense power", the "power of politicking and bargaining to fulfill national interests at the regional and global front”, and securing a strong economy and public’s wellbeing among the "pillars of national power". “None of these arms of national power should be cut off in favor of one pillar and the other,” Khamenei said.
Iran has been enriching uranium to 60-percent purity since early 2021 shortening the time it would need to reach 90-percent needed for a nuclear bomb. It first started to enrich to 20-peercent purity in 2019 when the United States strengthened oil sanctions imposed a year earlier when former president Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The higher-level enrichment violates the nuclear agreement.
Officials say sanction have affected people's livelihoods but insist the government is finding ways to minimize their impact and the country can endure. In his speech Khamenei made no mention of how he intends to ensure "public welfare and easy livelihood" if sanctions were not lifted.
Iran has also continued expanding its ballistic missile and other weapons programs, resisiting any Western attempts to discuss limitations.
A key website, Nour News, on Thursday insisted that a nuclear deal would not stop Iran's missile program and praised Tehran’s negotiators in the Vienna nuclear talks for having thwarted US attempts to force Iran to discuss its missile program. On Saturday the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) unveiled two underground missile bases and on Tuesday put a second military satellite into orbit.
Earlier on Thursday, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani said nuclear talks "get knottier by the hour" and accused the US of not being interested in a "strong deal".
Officials involved in the talks in Vienna last week, including the Russian envoy to the talks, appeared very optimistic about reaching a deal even as early as this week. Uncertainties arose on Saturday when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow wanted written guarantees from the US that its nuclear and economic relations with Tehran would not be affected by sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Despite the new complication Tehran and Moscow argue that major and secondary issues have remained unresolved, which the Western side should address before a final text can be agreed on and hold the US responsible for the delay in signing the deal.
"We want the JCPOA to be settled but our own interests are important to us. These will benefit Iran too," Levan Dzhagaryan (Jagaryan) said Wednesday in response to a question about allegations that after its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has taken the 2015 deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) hostage to its own interests.
"We need guarantees these sanctions [imposed by Washington on Moscow] will in no way affect the trading, economic and investment relations contained in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for the Iranian nuclear program," Lavrov said Sunday according to Tass.
The Russian ambassador made the remarks at a press conference with selected Iranian media outlets for clarification of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's controversial remarks earlier this week.
Implementation
Russia is widely expected to play a central role in implementing a restored JCPOA, especially in removing stocks of enriched uranium in excess of JCPOA limits, a task it undertook when the agreement was reached in 2015.
Lavrov’s remarks Saturday sparked accusations in Iran of Russian ‘blackmail,’ reflecting a growing hostility to Russia in both the media and social-media platforms seen last month in objections to the Russian ambassador honoring Alexandr Griboyedov, a Russian diplomat and writer murdered by a Tehran mob in 1829.
Dzhagaryan told the press conference Wednesday that as an ambassador he was not privy to every piece of information but warned against attempts to divide Moscow and Tehran.
" I can't offer any details as only top officials in Tehran and negotiators in Vienna are aware of them,” he said. “Our interests are important to us but our interests are not to the detriment of others. Don't you think the western [powers] want a division between us? Be aware that our officials, Mr Lavrov and Mr [Hossein] Amir-Abdollahian [Iran’s foreign minister] are in continued contact.”
Equal rights
The Iranian foreign ministry’s spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Monday that Tehran was waiting for “details” having “seen and heard” Lavrov’s comments in the media. The Russian foreign ministry on Monday reported a phone call between Lavrov and Amir-Abdollahian noting agreement that "all participants" in the JCPOA should have "equal rights in relation to the unhindered development of cooperation in all areas without any discrimination.”
The 2015 deal was signed by Iran and the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (5+1), limiting the Iranian nuclear program, and lifting a raft of United Nations, European Union and US sanctions. The US left the deal in 2018 and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions designed to end Iranian oil exports and break any links between Iran and the international financial sector.
The remaining signatories – China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom – have all argued the US should lift sanctions incompatible with the JCPOA while Tehran should return its nuclear program, expanded since 2019, to JCPOA limits. While promising to revive the JCPOA, President Joe Biden has kept that sanctions in place during the talks.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed Tuesday that Moscow and Washington – regardless of the Ukraine crisis - shared an interest in reviving the JCPOA. But Victoria Nuland, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday that Russia was “trying to up the ante and broaden its demands with regard to the JCPOA.” She insisted: “We are not playing 'Let's Make a Deal.’”