Udall urges patience, not new sanctions, in talks with Iran
Some in Congress are eager to slap new sanctions on Iran if it doesn’t accept a nuclear agreement by summer. But some Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Tom Udall, are urging their colleagues to tap the brakes just a bit.
The Senate Banking Committee last week approved a bill that would impose additional sanctions on Iran if no nuclear agreement is reached by the end of June. The legislation has strong bipartisan support, with eight Republican and six Democratic co-sponsors.
But the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat, has said he will hold off on moving it to the Senate floor before March 24. That’s the deadline for determining if the two countries can reach agreement on conditions that would assure the U.S. that Iran isn’t pursuing a nuclear bomb.
President Obama has warned against disrupting the delicate, ongoing nuclear talks by threatening Iran with additional sanctions prematurely and has vowed to veto any sanctions bill that reaches his desk before the late March date. Udall, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, is sympathetic to the president’s position.
“Our goal should be preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and I think we have agreement on that,” Udall told me in a telephone interview last week. “American threats have already harmed negotiations with Iran and moving forward with this legislation (threatening additional sanctions) could end talks completely. I think that would be a very dangerous and myopic road to take.”
Udall said American diplomats and nuclear nonproliferation experts at the highest levels are negotiating with Iran, and Congress should let them do their job.
“I don’t think Congress should at this particular point get right in the middle of these negotiations and blow them up,” Udall said. “That’s where we’re headed. Blowing up the negotiations would be very bad news. The reason for sanctions is you’re trying to bring a country like Iran to the table.”
Udall said tough economic sanctions are already in force against Iran thanks to work by the so-called P5+1 countries, led by the U.S., that have pressured Iran to be more transparent about its nuclear ambitions.
“We’re in a very good agreement,” he said. “We’ve had inspections and transparency and we haven’t had that in effect in a long, long time. Let’s see if we get something together by March and move forward.”
Many Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, contend that the Obama administration is dithering with Iran.
McCain last week backed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for more sanctions before late March. Netanyahu is expected to address the U.S. House of representatives at House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation in early March.
Neither Netanyahu’s administration nor Boehner’s office bothered to inform the White House about the Israeli prime minister’s planned speaking engagement before it was announced. According to an ABC News report last week, Boehner told a private Republican caucus that he supports moving forward with additional Iranian sanctions, despite Obama’s objections.
“He expects us to stand idly by and do nothing while he cuts a bad deal with Iran,” Boehner is reported to have said. “Two words: ‘Hell no!’ ...”
Over in the Senate, Udall has become a voice of consistent caution on the Foreign Relations Committee, whether he’s grilling Secretary of State John Kerry on the wisdom of sending arms to Syrian rebels or advising against meddling in nuke negotiations with Iran. Udall contends patience is the best play with Iran — at least for now.
“The Iranians are hurting (from already-imposed sanctions), so they want out of this as quickly as possible,” he said. “We need to keep up the pressure to get an agreement that is going to last over time. In order to do that, it’s going to be a trustbuilding exercise. We’ll take an action and then they’ll take an action. This could end up taking years and years, but that’s a good thing if you’re building positive trust and moving in the right direction. Sometimes the (media) make it sound like it’s either this or that — right now. The hope here is to build a relationship. We shouldn’t blow up the negotiations.”
Former Sen. Jeff Bingaman retired from the Senate two years ago, but he’s staying busy from his home base in Santa Fe. Last week, Bingaman told me he’s serving on the board of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as on a commission studying retirement security at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, where former Sen. Pete Domenici also hangs his hat these days.
Bingaman said he’ll also do some lecturing at UNM this spring on economics, politics and other “major policy issues we grappled with over the last 30-35 years during the time I was involved in Washington.”