by Yoni Hersch, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
"We already know it's going to leave Iran as a threshold nuclear state," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says of Iran nuclear deal • House Speaker John Boehner says he would "applaud" U.S. President Barack Obama for walking away from talks.
U.S. President Barack Obama addresses Congress [Archive]
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional leaders expressed doubts Sunday about the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, predicting that U.S. President Barack Obama could face hurdles in Congress if negotiators reach a final agreement.
McConnell spoke minutes after diplomats said on Sunday that negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna were expected to reach a provisional agreement to curb the country's atomic program in return for tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been leading the American delegation in the talks, which aim to impose long-term, verifiable limits on Tehran's nuclear programs.
"This is going to be a very hard sell for the administration," McConnell said on "Fox News Sunday" when asked about the likelihood of Congress signing off on a deal. "We already know it's going to leave Iran as a threshold nuclear state."
Obama has come under criticism from members of Congress and some U.S. allies in the Middle East who say the administration has conceded too much in the Iran talks.
Credit: Reuters
The current negotiations have run more than two weeks and blown through three deadlines. Because the talks are in overtime, Congress will have 60 days to assess the deal, requiring Obama to await that review before easing sanctions agreed to in a deal.
During those two months, lawmakers could try to build a veto-proof majority behind new legislation that could impose new sanctions on Iran or prevent Obama from suspending existing ones.
Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said lawmakers would review any agreement carefully to ensure the Iranians are held accountable and that any violations can be enforced.
"At the end of the day, I think people understand that if this is a bad deal that is going to allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, they would own this deal if they voted for it, and so they'll want to disapprove it," said Corker. "On the other hand, if we feel like we're better off with it, people will look to approve it."
Sen. Ben Cardin, the committee's ranking Democratic member, acknowledged the long, difficult work of negotiators and said that Congress has a rigorous task ahead, as well.
"In our deliberations we need to ensure the negotiations resulted in a comprehensive, long-lasting, and verifiable outcome that also provides for snap-back of sanctions should Iran deviate from its commitments," Cardin said in a statement on Sunday. "If an agreement is achieved, Congress faces a solemn charge in reviewing the deal which I expect will be fulfilled to the best of our abilities and at the highest of standards."
Obama played down chances for an Iran nuclear deal during a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats last week, telling participants that an agreement was at best a 50-50 proposition.
McConnell said a resolution of disapproval is likely to be introduced in the Senate and predicted it would pass with more than 60 votes. If Obama vetoed the resolution, McConnell noted that the president would need 34 votes, or more than one-third of the Senate, to sustain it, adding that he hoped Democrats would resist a "strong pull" not to buck Obama.
Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a leading foreign policy voice among Senate Democrats, said the prospect of a deal made him "anxious," saying the talks had moved from preventing Iran from having a nuclear capability to managing that capability.
Western diplomats say the goal of the deal is to increase the time it would take for Iran to produce enough enriched uranium fuel for a weapon to at least one year, from current estimates of two to three months.
Menendez, interviewed on ABC's "This Week" program, did not rule out supporting a deal.
The debate in Washington over any deal would happen with the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign already under way.
One Republican candidate, Sen. Lindsey Graham, said on CNN's "State of the Union" that negotiations should be left to the next president, who will take office in January 2017.
"I think a good outcome is to basically leave the interim deal in place" with Iran until then, Graham said.
House Speaker John Boehner said failure of the talks would not be a bad outcome.
On CBS's "Face the Nation," Boehner said: "If, in fact, there's no agreement, the sanctions are going to go back in place," prodding Iran to "abandon their efforts to get a nuclear weapon, and stop being the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world."
When asked what if neither of those things were to happen, Boehner said there would be "a standoff," but that such a scenario was better than "legitimizing this rogue regime" with a final nuclear accord with Tehran.
Boehner further said that he would "applaud" Obama for walking away from the Iran nuclear talks, adding that "no deal is better than a bad deal."
"From everything that's leaked from these negotiations, the administration's backed away from almost all of the guidelines that they set out for themselves," he said.
Iranian and Western officials say the earliest an agreement could be ready is likely Monday.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=26839
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