December 25, 2015
by Warren L. Nelsonn
The Islamic Republic has launched a frenzy of opposition to the new US visa waiver law, portraying it as a gigantic anti-Iranian plot that could unravel the entire nuclear agreement.
More than a third of the members of the Majlis have signed a letter demanding that the government retaliate against the United States for the new law.
And the Foreign Ministry spokesman proclaimed that the Israeli lobby in the United States was behind the measure, even though the Israeli lobby took no stand on the bill.
Iranian-Americans also fear the impact the law may have on them, although the bill says nothing about American citizens or green card holders
Iran was not a subject of the debate when the bill was passed last week. The bill was framed as a response to the American public’s unease after the shootings in Paris and San Bernardino. It was thrown together on very short notice and rushed to the floor of the House of Representatives without any hearings. That is unusual—except in circumstances like this one where Congress is eager to show that it is doing something to respond to a major issue that has moved the public.
One congressional observer told the Iran Times the bill was not intended to hurt Iranians or do anything to the nuclear agreement, but was intended to avoid some stronger legislation—like a bill to ban all Muslim immigrants. “In moments of public stress, like after these shootings, Congress insists on showing that it is doing something,” the observer said. “The congressional leadership makes sure there is a bill to vote on and tries to make it as innocuous as possible in reality. After that, they move on to considering serious legislation in a slow and deliberative process.”
The bill approved last week was just such a “show” bill. But it has aroused a stink both in Iran and within the Iranian-American community.
The main concern in Iran has been that the bill would discourage investment in Iran because foreigners wouldn’t want to travel to Iran if it meant they would have to get a visa afterward to go to the United States.
The bill says that a citizen of any of the 38 countries whose citizens have been allowed since 1986 to visit the United States for 90 days without a visa would be required to get a visa first if they had visited Iran, Sudan, Syria or Iraq in the previous five years or if they held dual citizenship in one of those countries.
Syria and Iraq were targeted because they are the counties where the Islamic State mainly operates. The bill also applies to any countries on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, which adds Iran and Sudan, although neither is named in the bill.
Critics say there is no serious rationale for choosing those countries since few nationals of any of them have been involved in terrorist actions against the United States. The main sources of terrorists acting in the US have been Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry was concerned the bill would discourage European investors from coming to Iran because they would then have to go through a bureaucratic rigmarole to get a US visa. The ministry was sufficiently concerned that Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif personally raised the issue last week when he met with US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Kerry then wrote Zarif a letter explaining why the fears were unfounded, noting that the new law gives the president the authority to waive the bill’s restrictions and implying—but not explicitly stating—that the president was willing to use that authority if need be to prevent any damage to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the nuclear deal is formally named.
Kerry wrote:
“The recent changes in visa requirements passed in Congress, which the Administration has the authority to waive, will not in any way prevent us from meeting our JCPOA commitments, and we will implement them.
“To this end, we have a number of potential tools available to us, including multiple entry, ten-year business visas, programs for expediting business visas, and the waiver authority provided under the new legislation. I am happy to discuss this further and provide any additional clarification.”
That didn’t stop the official anger, of course. Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said the congressional bill “is geared to harassing” Iran. He and others have insisted that the bill violates two specific paragraphs, Numbers 28 and 29, of the JCPOA. In a speech in Qom last week, Larijani said, “If the Americans pursue this legislation, they will destroy an achievement with their own hands since it is against the JCPOA.”
Here are two paragraphs in the JCPOA that he cited. The key parts are italicized.
“28. The E3/EU+3 [as the Big Six powers are formally called] and Iran commit to implement this JCPOA in good faith and in a constructive atmosphere, based on mutual respect, and to refrain from any action inconsistent with the letter, spirit and intent of this JCPOA that would undermine its successful implementation. Senior Government officials of the E3/EU+3 and Iran will make every effort to support the successful implementation of this JCPOA including in their public statements. The E3/EU+3 will take all measures required to lift sanctions and will refrain from imposing exceptional or discriminatory regulatory and procedural requirements in lieu of the sanctions and restrictive measures covered by the JCPOA.
“29. The EU and its Member States and the United States, consistent with their respective laws, will refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalisation of trade and economic relations with Iran inconsistent with their commitments not to undermine the successful implementation of this JCPOA.”
Note that the language refers to “regulatory and procedural” actions, which a US statute is not. It also refers to consistency with national laws. US administrations routinely call for such language in agreements with other countries because they cannot control what Congress does. That is also one reason administrations routinely press for the authority to waive laws in the foreign policy area—and it is fear of accidentally mucking up foreign relations that leads Congress routinely to grant the president waiver authority, as it did here.
But 102 of the 290 Majlis deputies still signed a letter demanding retaliatory actions against the United States. They didn’t say what kind of retaliatory actions they wanted.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossain Jaberi-Ansari also insisted that the new bill was passed “under pressure from the Zionist lobby and currents opposed to the JCPOA.” But the “Zionist lobby” said nothing about the bill. And only 19 members of the House voted against the visa changes although 10 times that number publicly supported the JCPOA when it came before the House.
Needless to say, the ultra-hardline daily Kayhan leaped on the bill. Its headline last Monday said: “Existing sanctions not yet lifted; additional sanctions imposed.”
In the United States, there was talk of the bill being unconstitutional because it singled out specific classes of people—like dual national Iranians—and thus was discriminatory. But the dual nationals singled out are not American citizens; they are Iranians who also have citizenship in one of 38 other foreign countries. And the Immigration and Nationality Act, which dates back many decades, allows such discrimination with regard to foreigners.
The law states: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all such aliens or of any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
In other words, if Donald Trump becomes president, he will have the authority to ban the entry of any foreign national Muslim to the United States.
The bill, which will be signed into law by President Obama this week, has excited anger within the Iranian-American community to a degree never before seen—far more than greeted the policies imposed after the embassy seizure and the 9/11 attacks.
The bill itself has no application to American citizens. But the concern is that Europe may retaliate by applying the same restrictions in the bill to American citizens—that is, by saying that Iranian-Americans will no longer be able to visit the 38 counties in the visa waiver program without first getting a visa.
And Europe may indeed do that. Then, again, it may not.
Many news reports have stated that many European diplomats have said Europe will adopt the policy of reciprocity and apply the same restrictions to Iranian-Americans (and Syrian-Americans etc.).
Actually, it is only a solitary European diplomat who has spoken up—and he has not said Europe will impose reciprocity, only that it will think about it.
David O’Sullivan, the EU ambassador to the United States, last week called the new law “excessively rigid,” apparently forgetting the waiver authority in it.
He said the bill would complicate the EU’s planned review next year of the Visa Waiver Program. “It is clear that to the extent that this new legislation creates new discriminatory treatment, then that will be part of the review process in April,” he said.
He did not say that anything would be done. While the new legislation is big news in Iran and among Iranian-Americans, it hasn’t been an issue in Europe so there may be no interest in enforcing reciprocity.
However, if they do so, it could cause real pain for Iranian-Americans. After three decades with no visas required for tourists, European embassies and consulates in the United States simply don’t have a staff trained for processing such visas. And the number of Iranian-Americans (Sudanese-Americans etc.) wishing to visit Italy isn’t likely to be large enough to warrant more staff or training, so those who do seek such visas could face a bureaucratic wall.
