American Lawmakers Tire of Biden’s Long Push for Iran Deal

The Senate is demonstrating increasing impatience with President Biden’s attempt to fulfill an election campaign promise to return America to the 2015 Iran deal, with more Democrats and most Republicans urging the plug be pulled on his Iran diplomacy. Since at least February administration officials have said that Russian- and European-brokered negotiations with Tehran are time-limited. After a certain point, these officials said, a return to the deal would have no benefits for America and our allies. Yet, months later — and even as talks in Vienna have been indefinitely suspended — those same officials are insisting on extending that timeline. The Senate last night passed two non-binding Iran-related resolutions with the support of the majority leader, Senator Schumer, as well as other top Democrats, including Mr. Biden’s Senate svengali, Senator Coons.All Republicans except for Senator Paul voted for the two motions that were authored, respectively, by Senator Langford of Oklahoma and Senator Cruz of Texas. Mr. Lankford’s motion, which passed with a 62-to-33 majority, opposes a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action if, like the 2015 deal, it solely addresses the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program while ignoring “the full range of Iran’s destabilizing activities.” Those, according to the motion, include the Tehran regime’s missile program, sponsorship of terrorism, and evasion of sanctions.The motion also opposes any deal that would lift sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or end its designation as a foreign terror organization.The administration has reportedly weighed an option to accommodate Tehran’s demand to, as a condition of its return to the JCPOA, remove the terror group from the State Department’s terror list. A reported compromise suggested leaving the IRGC’s foreign arm, the Quds force, on the terror list while delisting the rest of the IRGC. Such a move would allow the terror group to raise funds, including for Quds activities. Mr. Cruz’s motion, rolled into a larger resolution on Communist China, addresses cooperation between Beijing and Tehran to evade terror-related sanctions on the IRGC and on Iran’s central bank. With the support of 86 senators, it called on the administration to report on such Chinese-Iranian cooperation. Twelve Democrats, including Senators Murphy, Reed, Sanders, and Warren, joined Mr. Paul in opposition. Mr. Murphy of Connecticut contended the resolutions signaled a return to President Trump’s Iran policy, which he said “was a complete and total failure.”Mr. Murphy railed against Mr. Trump’s pursuit of a “comprehensive” Iran deal, beyond the nuclear issue. Yet, administration officials have for months acknowledged that after a certain point a return to a deal on only the nuclear file would have diminished returns.By that time, officials explained, Iran’s nuclear program would have advanced beyond the point at which the 2015 deal could stop it. Yet, they kept pushing the timeline on that point forward. Over the weekend the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, Senator Menendez of New Jersey, recalled that during a briefing in February, “we were told that if negotiations didn’t conclude by the end of February, that in fact, the time that would be lost, and what we would gain would be of very little importance — of values — to us.”“Well,” Mr. Menendez added, “if the end of February wasn’t going to buy us what we needed, certainly the end of April is not.”Two days ago Mr. Cruz, during a hearing with a State Department official, Brian McKeon, said the administration “has a secret assessment that says there is a point after which the nuclear progress would make a deal meaningless.” Secretary of State Blinken has made that point publicly, Mr. Cruz noted, and officials have told senators in a classified hearing what that point would be. Yet, he added, “it was kept from the public.” One reason that the public is kept in the dark could be that the administration’s ever-changing timeline assessment is shrouded in diplomatic jargon, rather than a set point to end the talks.“There seems to be an impression that there was always a date fixed on the calendar for us,” the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, said yesterday. The administration, he said, doesn’t see the timeline as a “temporal clock” but as a “technical clock.” A reporter asked if the administration believes that the window of opportunity is closing, and if the time has “come and gone” on a beneficial return to the JCPOA. “That time has not come and gone,” Mr. Price said. “The Biden administration has been talking about this specific window for months, including in classified settings,” a senior congressional staffer who asked not to be identified told the Sun, adding, “Well, okay, what is it?”The Islamic Republic is hoping for never-ending diplomacy that would allow it to advance its nuclear arsenal even as it builds up other military capabilities and spreads trerrorism. Seemingly disregarding growing pushback from Capitol Hill, Mr. Biden appears intent on abiding by Tehran’s wishes.

American Lawmakers Tire of Biden’s Long Push for Iran Deal

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