Congress’s decision vital to Iran’s nuclear deal survival
IN ABOUT 40 days, the US Congress will hold the most important vote of the Obama era, one that could determine peace or a new war in the Middle East.
President Barack Obama has said so himself: if Congress rejects the nuclear deal with Iran agreed in Vienna last month, the likely result would be a devastating new conflict that could set the Persian Gulf on fire.
“Let’s not mince words: The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and some form of war – maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon,” Obama said in a major speech last week. “How can we in good conscience justify war before we’ve tested a diplomatic agreement that achieves our objectives?”
Congress’s decision is vital to the survival of the deal, which was agreed by the US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany with Iran after months of gruelling negotiations.
The agreement will put stringent controls on Iran’s nuclear programme in return for a gradual lifting of sanctions that have devastated the Iranian economy. The UN Security Council has already endorsed the agreement in a resolution last month that sets out the timeline of lifting UN sanctions.
But the deal also requires Congress to lift US sanctions and if this is rejected those sanctions would stay and Iran would be released from its obligations under the deal, which would collapse.
The White House says it could lose the initial vote but that Congress won’t get the two-thirds of both Republican-controlled Houses to overturn Obama’s promised veto. However, the defection of powerful Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York has thrown that strategy into disarray if other Democrats join him.
The vote is seen as a test of whether Congress is more loyal to the US or to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pulled out all the stops to kill the agreement.
In March, he travelled to Washington to bash the deal – then still under negotiation – in a speech to a joint session of Congress, without first informing the White House. That was seen by some Congressmen as gross interference in US internal affairs by a foreign leader.
In a video conference last week, Netanyahu gave US Jewish leaders marching orders: do everything to rip up the agreement. Pro-Israel lobbyists in the US have had summer holidays cancelled until September 17, the deadline for the vote.
The Israeli leader thinks the agreement will let Iran get the bomb more easily. But a former Mossad director and dozens of retired Israeli intelligence officials, generals and admirals have publicly supported the deal.
Thirty-six retired US generals and admirals also published an open letter saying the deal was “the most effective means currently available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons”.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who negotiated the agreement, has made daily speeches in its support.
“We’re not asking anybody to trust Iran,” he said. “Iran doesn’t trust us. We don’t yet trust them… so, this agreement is built on real-time verification.
“Iran, in order to get any sanctions relief, has to reduce its programme very significantly,” he said. “We are convinced through our intelligence community and through our energy department... that we will know what Iran is doing.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency has never had definitive proof that Iran was seeking the bomb, and a US National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 said Iran had stopped seeking one.
Though the first sanctions won’t be lifted for five years, Israel’s concern is the unfreezing of Iranian assets in the US, which Netanyahu fears will fund Israel’s enemies Hezbollah and Hamas, two Iranian proxies. The Israeli prime minister has argued for military strikes on Iran with regime change as the apparent ultimate aim.
It’s now up to Congress to decide which administration it believes: Netanyahu’s or Obama’s.