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| Congress Suggests Nuclear Deal With Iran Not Sufficient Without Grand Bargain |
| 2014-07-12 |
| [Jpost] Congress unlikely to lift sanctions on Iran if deal over its nuclear program fails to address ancillary concerns, politicians tell US president. Compromise with Iran will not earn the support of Congress if the B.O. regime agrees to a deal that solely addresses international concerns with its nuclear program, a commanding majority of the House of Representatives wrote to the White House on Thursday. Delegations from world powers and Iran have convened in Vienna this week in an attempt to forge a comprehensive nuclear agreement, working against a self-imposed deadline of July 20. The task is a tall order: such a deal has alluded the world's top diplomats for over a decade, since the slow-motion crisis began. Earning the signatures of 344 members, including the Democratic whip and the speaker of the House, the letter asserts that "the concept of an exclusively defined 'nuclear-related' sanction on Iran does not exist in US law." "Almost all sanctions related to Iran's nuclear program are also related to Tehran's advancing ballistic missile program, intensifying support for international terrorism, and other unconventional weapons programs," reads the letter, written jointly by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and ranking member Eliot Engel (D-NY). "Similarly," it continues, "many of these sanctions are aimed at preventing Iranian banks involved in proliferation, terrorism, money laundering and other activities from utilizing the US and global financial systems to advance these destructive policies." US negotiators have suggested that Iran's ballistic missile program, and its endorsement and funding of terrorist activity around the world, are not a part of the negotiation under way in Austria, as Western diplomats focus on the technical challenges of curbing decades-old nuclear work and the feasibility of enforcing such a deal. Congress has passed four bills codifying sanctions against the Islamic Theocratic Republicin the past five years, in addition to a series of executive actions taken by US President Barack Obama If you have a small business, you didn't build that... that have— coupled with sanctions passed through the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... Security Council— fueled an economic crisis in Iran and a significant drop in the country's crude oil sales. Members of both houses of Congress fear the president will attempt to circumvent the legislature in the short-term, should negotiations in Vienna, currently under way, succeed in forging a comprehensive agreement to the nuclear impasse. On several occasions, however, the White House has said that a deal that includes the repeal or relieving of sanctions will require a mix of executive and legislative action. B.O. regime officials decline, however, to provide a timeline for such steps. |
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