The Senate plans to vote on a bill this week that would extend sanctions on Iran for 10 years, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday in remarks on the Senate floor.
“Preserving these sanctions is critical given Iran’s disturbing pattern of aggression and its persistent efforts to expand its sphere of influence across the Middle East,” McConnell said.
The existing sanctions are even more critical, he argued, “given how the administration has ignored Iran’s overall efforts to upset the balance of power in the greater Middle East, and how it has been held hostage by Iran’s threats to withdraw from the nuclear agreement.”
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, predicted that the bill could hit the Senate floor for a vote as early as Wednesday and that President Obama is not opposed enough to veto it.
The Senate action comes after the sanctions extension sailed through the House last month with broad bipartisan support. The sanctions, which Congress first passed in 1996, target any outside investments in Iran’s energy sector to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, would have expired at the end of 2016 if Congress hadn’t acted.
The Obama administration opposed the legislation, arguing that it already has the power to extend or impose addition sanctions on Tehran and the sanctions are no longer necessary after the nuclear deal between Iran, the U.S. and other world powers.
Members of Congress, including key Democrats, are adamant that the existing sanctions remain in effect in order to demonstrate to Iran that the U.S. will respond to any Iran provocations or violations of the nuclear agreement.
