Sen. Ben Cardin addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
policy conference on March 1, 2015.
Congress is headed this week for an acrimonious fight over the Iran nuclear agreement even though President Obama now has the votes needed to sustain a veto of any resolution rejecting it. The House will almost certainly pass such a resolution, but in the Senate Republicans and their handful of Democratic allies have yet to find the 60 votes they need to avoid a possible filibuster in the matter. While all 54 Republican senators seem certain to reject the agreement, along with the three Democrats who have declared their opposition, five Democrats have yet to announce their stance, and each of them could go either way.
The highly partisan nature of the opposition to the multinational agreement—zero Republicans in the House or Senate support it—could make it a major issue in the 2016 election, with Democrats being accused of an old GOP canard about being weak on defense. According to CNN, former Vice President Dick Cheney will give that theme a big push Tuesday in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.
An advance copy of the speech shows that he will say the agreement is "madness" and that Obama is giving Iran "the means to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland." Cheney has long been one of the most prominent supporters of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, something he could not, in the face of opposition from the Joint Chiefs, persuade President George W. Bush to do.
On Wednesday, two presidential candidates—Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump—as well as 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will add a circus atmosophere to the issue with a Washington, D.C., rally where Cruz says they will “call on members of Congress to defeat the catastrophic deal that the Obama Administration has struck with the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Tea Party Patriots, the wacked-out conspiracy theorists at the Center for Security Policy and the once-liberal now right-wing Zionist Organization of America are co-sponsoring the event.
Last week, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland became the third Democratic senator to oppose the nuclear agreement. That's not the only move he's making, however. He plans to introduce the “Iran Policy Oversight Act of 2015,” a bill he says will strengthen the agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA).
But based on a copy of the 35-page working draft of the act obtained by blogger Jim Lobe, a veteran D.C.-based foreign policy reporter, the objective is clearly to undermine the agreement with "poison pills." Lobe says "the draft bill and its language fairly bristle with hostility and threat toward Iran that the Iranian leadership..."
Below the fold, there's more analysis and the latest whip counts of how members of the House and Senate stand on the agreement.
In an email to Lobe, Arms Control Association president Daryl Kimball wrote:
The bill seeks to reinterpret the requirements of the JCPOA and some of its sequencing and is being offered by somebody who just announced he is opposed to the deal. So this legislation must be interpreted as an attempt to undermine or block the implementation of the JCPOA, and other members of Congress need to recognize that.
And those who might still believe that this is not an attempt to undermine [the JCPOA’s] implementation must recognize that when it hits the floor, it could well become a Christmas tree for amendments by anti-deal members that are more clearly designed to kill the JCPOA.
Lobe found a number of problematic elements in Cardin's proposal. Among them:
• Reauthorizing sanctions that might otherwise expire, something Iran's diplomats have previously said would be considered a violatation of the JCPOA.
• Requiring that congressional committees receive “complete information” undertaken by the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program, including “the Parchin military base, methods and results of any environmental sampling, and information on the technical-expert meetings that took place between the IAEA and Iran officials and scientists…” However, providing such information would violate confidentiality agreements that the IAEA maintains in its interactions with nations that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• Authorizing the delivery to Israel of Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) “and the means to deploy them.” In other words, the transfer by strategic bombers like B-52s or B-2s to Israel. This would, according to arms control experts, clearly violate New START Treaty commitments.
A bill that includes such provisions—and whatever others senators might decide to attach—might not amount to straightforward rejection of the nuclear agreement the way a resolution of disapproval would do, but it would surely face a presidential veto, too.
Congressional talk about renegotiating or killing the agreement has to be seen in the international context. High-level diplomats from America's partners in negotiations with Iran—China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom—have made clear that no better agreement will be forthcoming.
And all of them have made political and economic moves in the past two months indicating that they plan to remove sanctions on Iran that were designed to force it to curtail its nuclear program, which the agreement does. Investors from all those nations have appeared in Tehran since the agreement was announced July 14. A German delegation was there five days later. Such moves are not likely to be reversed whatever Congress does.
•••
[This tally was updated at 9 AM PT Tuesday.]
Maria Cantwell is the only Democratic senator who has not declared a stance on the Iran agreement.
Here is the whip count of the House from The Hill.
One hundred and nineteen House Democrats have declared themselves in support of the agreement. Seventeen are opposed. Zero House Republicans have declared their support. To sustain a presidential veto in the House, 145 Democratic supporters are needed.
Here is the list of six Democratic representatives said to be "leaning yes":
• Rep. Terri Sewell (Ala.)
• Rep. Sanford Bishop (Ga.)
• Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.)
• Rep. Chaka Fattah (Pa.)
And here are the 47 Democrats who are undecided or whose positions are unclear:
Rep. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.); Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.); Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.)
Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.); Rep. Ami Bera (Calif.); Rep. Tony Cardenas (Calif.); Rep. Jim Costa (Calif.); Rep. Janice Hahn (Calif.); Rep. Jared Huffman (Calif.); Rep. Ted Lieu (Calif.); Rep. Grace Napolitano (Calif.); Rep. Raul Ruiz (Calif.); Rep. Loretta Sanchez (Calif.); and Rep. Norma Torres (Calif.)
Rep. John Carney (Del.)
Rep. Gwen Graham (Fla.)
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii); Rep. Mark Takai (Hawaii)
Rep. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.)
Rep. Pete Visclosky (Ind.)
Rep. Cedric Richmond (La.)
Rep. John Delaney (Md.); Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.); Rep. Dutch Ruppersburger (Md.)
Rep. Bill Keating (Mass.); Rep. Richard Neal (Mass.)
Rep. Collin Peterson (Minn.)
Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.)
Rep. Lacy Clay (Mo.)
Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (N.M.)
Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.); Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (N.Y.); Rep. Charles Rangel (N.Y.).
Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.)
Rep. Joyce Beatty (Ohio); Rep. Marcia Fudge (Ohio); Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio); Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio)
Rep. Robert Brady (Pa.)
Rep. David Cicilline (R.I.); Rep. Jim Langevin (R.I.)
Rep. Jim Cooper (Tenn.)
Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas); Rep. Al Green (Texas); Rep. Gene Green (Texas); Rep. Marc Veasey (Texas); Rep. Filemon Vela (Texas)
One Democrats is leaning no—Alan Grayson (Fla.)