December 27-2013
. . . author of bill
It is becoming increasingly likely that the US Senate will have a knockdown, drag-out fight in January over new sanctions on Iran.
Last week, 26 of the 100 senators—13 Democrats and 13 Republicans—introduced a bill to impose more and harsher sanctions on Iran, though they would not take effect until and unless negotiations broke off or Iran violated the terms of the interim agreement.
At the same time, 10 of the most senior Democrats—all committee chairmen—signed a letter denouncing the bill and declaring their strong opposition to it. One of the chairmen signing the letter is Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who heads the Banking Committee that will handle the financial provisions in the bill. Johnson could just bottle up the bill and kill it.
It was a very rare instance of senators squaring off in large numbers weeks before legislation could come to the floor for a vote.
And to add to the tension, even before the bill was unveiled, the White House said President Obama would veto the bill. In his five years in office, Obama has only vetoed two bills so far. And the White House didn’t make a vague, qualified threat such as “the president will consider a veto.” It was explicit. Spokesman Jay Carney said, “If it were to pass, the president would veto it.” Period.
The 26 supporters of the bill were led—as in past sanctions efforts—by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New York, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois.
The sanctions specifies that countries still importing Iranian oil will have to reduce that to a “de minimus” level within two years or see their banks shut out of the US financial system. Earlier versions had set the deadline at one year.
The 51-page bill would also extend the reach of sanctions to new Iranian commercial areas, chiefly mining.
It authorizes the president to suspend the new sanctions for a maximum of 240 days, effectively setting a deadline for negotiating a final deal between Iran and the Big Six. The sanctions would take immediate effect if Iran in any way ever violated the Joint Plan of Action signed last month or if Iran tested any ballistic missile with a range exceeding 500 kilometers. That last requirement was something completely new. It wasn’t clear where it came from.
The legislation also tries to write the terms of a final Big Six agreement with Iran, saying the agreement must provide “that Iran will dismantle illicit nuclear infrastructure, including enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, the heavy water reactor and production plant at Arak, and any nuclear weapons components and technology.”
But this would appear to kill the interim agreement, in which the United States has already agreed that Iran can have some level of enrichment capability in the final agreement.
Senators had spoken earlier about possibly drafting the bill so it would not take effect for several months. Instead they have drafted it to take effect 90 days after passage, but authorized the president to waive the provisions for up to 240 days.
To some that appeared to be a deliberate smack in the face of the Islamic Republic.
A few weeks ago, Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said, “The entire deal is dead” if Congress passes any sanctions legislation, even one with a delay included.