The would-be leader of Senate Democrats sticks a knife in diplomacy.
In the midst of the first Republican debate, New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer announced Thursday evening that he will oppose the agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. His
decision, while not unexpected, could persuade fence-straddling Democrats also to oppose the agreement hammered out over 20 months by the United States and five other world powers.
But Greg Sargent at The Washington Post is skeptical that Schumer's decision will have as great an impact on his colleagues as other observers think it might. None of them has the kind of political pressures on them to oppose the agreement as Schumer does. And he himself has said he won't rally other Democrats to his side.
In the past few days, a number of Democrats, including New York's other senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, have publicly announced their support for the agreement. Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced Friday that she will back it.
White House officials remain confident, publicly at least, that they have the votes needed to keep the naysayers at bay. Opponents need 60 votes to pass a resolution disapproving the agreement and 67 to override a presidential veto. Currently, with Baldwin on board, 12 senators publicly support the deal. But many others are clearly leaning in that direction. Republicans need 13 Democratic votes for an override, which means they have to come up with 12 more. That's a tall order. And White House lobbying over the August recess will be fierce.
Schumer's decision is especially galling because he is widely seen as the replacement for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who is retiring at the end of his term. The liberal activist group MoveOn made clear Thursday night that they would fight Schumer's ascension to that powerful post:
“Our country doesn’t need another Joe Lieberman in the Senate, and it certainly doesn’t need him as Democratic leader,” MoveOn political action executive director Ilya Sheyman said in a statement about Schumer, who is next to line to be the Senate’s top Democrat.
“No real Democratic leader does this,” he added. “If this is what counts as ‘leadership’ among Democrats in the Senate, Senate Democrats should be prepared to find a new leader or few followers.”
Indeed, they should.
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Speaking of Lieberman, he is one of several Democratic hawks serving on the advisory board of Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, founded this year specifically to oppose the agreement. The group, which for weeks has been running a television ad blasting the agreement as a bad deal and is expected to spend $20 million in its efforts to crush it, was formed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and includes three other former Democratic senators—MarK Begich of Alaska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Evan Bayh of Indiana—as well as former Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada.
In his statement of opposition, Schumer gave President Obama credit for "combating and containing Iran," but objected to several specifics in the agreement:
In making my decision, I examined this deal in three parts: nuclear restrictions on Iran in the first ten years, nuclear restrictions on Iran after ten years, and non-nuclear components and consequences of a deal. In each case I have asked: are we better off with the agreement or without it?
In the first ten years of the deal, there are serious weaknesses in the agreement. First, inspections are not “anywhere, anytime”; the 24-day delay before we can inspect is troubling. While inspectors would likely be able to detect radioactive isotopes at a site after 24 days, that delay would enable Iran to escape detection of any illicit building and improving of possible military dimensions (PMD) — the tools that go into building a bomb but don’t emit radioactivity. [...]
Even more troubling is the fact that the U.S. cannot demand inspections unilaterally. By requiring the majority of the 8-member Joint Commission, and assuming that China, Russia, and Iran will not cooperate, inspections would require the votes of all three European members of the P5+1 as well as the EU representative. It is reasonable to fear that, once the Europeans become entangled in lucrative economic relations with Iran, they may well be inclined not to rock the boat by voting to allow inspections. [...]
If Iran’s true intent is to get a nuclear weapon, under this agreement, it must simply exercise patience. After ten years, it can be very close to achieving that goal, and, unlike its current unsanctioned pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear program will be codified in an agreement signed by the United States and other nations. To me, after ten years, if Iran is the same nation as it is today, we will be worse off with this agreement than without it. [...]
To me, the very real risk that Iran will not moderate and will, instead, use the agreement to pursue its nefarious goals is too great.
Therefore, I will vote to disapprove the agreement, not because I believe war is a viable or desirable option, nor to challenge the path of diplomacy. It is because I believe Iran will not change, and under this agreement it will be able to achieve its dual goals of eliminating sanctions while ultimately retaining its nuclear and non-nuclear power. Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations, and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more, difficult as it may be.
If Schumer and other opponents of the agreement—including those who make no secret of their views that bombing Iran is better than negotiating—managed against the odds to gather the needed votes for disapproval and a veto override, exactly how things would pan out is anybody's guess.
Several of the other world powers involved in the negotiations are unlikely to continue to support U.N. sanctions on Iran, meaning the United States could find itself isolated in this matter with few allies going forward.
As reported by John Hudson, 30 senators participated in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill Tuesday with top diplomats, including envoys from Russia and China:
“The prospect of the rejection of a deal makes us nervous,” Philipp Ackermann, the acting German ambassador to the United States, said Thursday. “It would be a nightmare for every European country if this is rejected.” [...]
British Ambassador Peter Westmacott insisted any chances of getting a better deal were “far-fetched,” according to two individuals in the room. He also speculated that international sanctions against Tehran would fall apart even if Congress blocked the deal — a view seconded by Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. [...]
“Everybody accepts that this deal is an enormous achievement of international diplomacy,” [Ackermann] said. “If the U.S. says ‘sorry guys, we can’t pursue this because our Congress isn’t going along with us,’ questions will be asked … Other countries will say, ‘why should I be following [this] Congress?”
Foes of the agreement are plagued by one key flaw in their stance. They offer no reasonable alternative.