Diplomacy

  • Print Friendly, PDF & Email
  • Send to Kindle

Reports: Democrats and Republican Senators Brush Off White House Calls to Delay New Iran Sanctions

by TheTower.org Staff |

The logic behind White House efforts to delay a Senate push for new sanctions on Iran – that heightened pressure on the Islamic republic would cause Iranian negotiators to walk away from the table – had already drawn criticism in recent days from lawmakers, analysts, and journalists. Inasmuch as the administration insists that Iran has been coerced into entering negotiations because of economic pressure, it has not always been clear why more economic pressure would cause them to break off talks.

Top administration officials have been working Capitol Hill yesterday to persuade Senators that they should heed the White House’s call to delay sanctions. Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew briefed Senators yesterday. Bloomberg this morning assessed their success as limited:

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, said they intend to push forward with new economic sanctions after emerging from a closed-door briefing yesterday… “I’d have to hear something far more substantive from what I heard today to dissuade me” from acting on legislation, Menendez told reporters… “Sanctions are the only way to prevent a war,” Kirk said. “Just leave it in place and let the Iranians run out of money. They might miss a payment to Hezbollah,” he added, referring to the Lebanon-based Shiite militia that the U.S., Israel and the European Union consider a terrorist group.

Kirk also suggested that upcoming talks were unlikely to yield robust progress, describing Iran’s negotiation strategy as “a long rope-a-dope.”

Kirk and others have also pointed out that Iran is continuing to strengthen its hand by installing new nuclear technology and enriching more material, and that it would be at best churlish for the Iranians to claim that the U.S. doing the same constitutes a deal-breaker:

[Photo: CLICKATV / YouTube]

tt