A year after the United States and five other world powers signed a historic nuclear deal with Iran, the most steadfast supporters and the most fervent detractors can both say they were right.
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USA officials reflected on the one-year anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the controversial nuclear agreement with Iran created to restrain its nuclear weapons program, and State Secretary John Kerry said the deal has “made the world safer”.
The Congress Republicans have long described the heavy water purchase a subsidy to Iran’s nuclear program, triggering the White House’s response on Monday when it threatened to veto the bill.
On a largely party-line vote, the House backed the measure Wednesday 249-176.
Obama has vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk, and Rep. Eliot Engel of NY, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee who opposed the Iran agreement, accused the Republicans of “political theater”.
The sanctions are also hindering foreign investors’ plans in the country, to which Lew said that Washington would continue to use sanctions to pressure Tehran on the terror and ballistic missile issues.
“We supported the JCPOA”, the senators wrote, adding it was still “the best available option” to keep Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon.
But Democrats called the GOP bills cynical attempts to score points with grass roots conservative constituents in an election year. As the sanctions unwind, observers have grown more concerned about whether Iran is getting the economic relief it had expected and how the unwinding might affect the remaining bans on Iran.
The Boeing sale is the sort of business that many expected would follow lifting of key worldwide sanctions that had been imposed on Iran because of its nuclear program.
Iran moved swiftly to dismantle its nuclear program after the deal was signed July 14, 2015, to speed sanctions relief, which would not come until the International Atomic Energy Agency certified Tehran had fully complied with the requirements.
The measure introduced by Republicans Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Marco Rubio and Democrats Robert Menendez and Joe Manchin would expand sanctions for Iran’s ballistic missile development, sanction transfers of conventional weapons to or from Iran and extend the Iran Sanctions Act. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
He said Iran has met “its part of this bargain and obligation”. Since the Iranian nuclear agreement was reached previous year – an agreement that limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and was at the time hailed as a victory for diplomacy – Iran has upheld its end of the bargain.
In a threat aimed at P5+1 powers – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany – an IAEO spokesman emphasized Iran’s capability to resume nuclear activities now frozen by the JCPOA, should the West not concede to Iran’s interpretation of conditions under the JCPOA.
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said renewing the law is necessary if the US wants to retain “a credible deterrent” of snapping sanctions back into place should Iran cheat.
Since past year, Iran has increased its inflammatory rhetoric against the West and Israel. Number one, the world is safer today because conflict in the region is not calculated on the basis of the potential of a nuclear confrontation or nuclear explosion, and because we have the ability to be able to work through some issues which we’ve seen, for instance with our sailors who stumbled into Iranian waters and within 24 hours we were able to get them out.
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Corker said the bill “reasserts the proper role of Congress” by prohibiting a president from easing sanctions in order to implement an global agreement with Iran without securing congressional approval.
