A White House spokesman thanked Senate Democrats for agreeing to hold off on a new Iran sanctions bill for nearly two months and pointedly did not reissue a veto threat of a new bill the group filed overnight.
“The president does indeed appreciate the recognition that our negotiators need continued time and space to pursue this diplomatic option,” deputy press secretary Eric Schultz told reporters Wednesday. “We welcome the commitment from Sen. Menendez and others … and we are going to continue to work closely with Congress on this.”
Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, with eight other Democrats and Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois had been threatening to push through a new Iran sanctions bill since last fall when the administration and Iran, with the other P5+1 countries of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China and Russia, missed their deadline to produce a permanent agreement to roll back Iran’s nuclear program.
Obama and Iran hardliners in his own party appeared to be on a collision course after the president pledged to veto any bill that would impose sanctions on Iran before the new March 24 deadline for negotiations to produce results.
The president and his supporters say Tehran would view the new sanctions as a breach of previous promises and likely would walk away from the discussions if Congress passed them.
On Tuesday, Democrats agreed to alter a bill so that the sanctions would go into effect only if the negotiations did not produce a deal by the new deadline.
President Obama in an interview with CNN that aired early Wednesday disputed arguments that Iran had already violated the terms of the interim agreement signed in fall 2013.
“They have not advanced their nuclear program,” he said. “They have actually rolled back their stockpiles of highly enriched uranium. And so we have lost nothing during this period of negotiations.”
By holding off on imposing new sanctions, Obama said he is trying to keep the pressure on Iran and not give it any excuse to walk away from the deal by blaming the U.S. for violating the terms of the negotiations.
If the talks fall apart without a deal, Obama said, the U.S. can “make sure that that it’s the Iranians’ fault because they couldn’t say yes to a reasonable deal.”
If the negotiations fall through, Obama said he would move to pass additional sanctions the next day.
“What I’ve said to the Israelis is the day after Iran walks away from a reasonable deal, the easiest thing for me to do in Congress is pass additional sanctions against Iran,” he said.
“It would take about two days for me to be able to assign a bill like that.”
