As talks over a return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal continue, Congress is upping scrutiny of President Joe Biden’s efforts to forge an agreement with Tehran that some argue needs provisions that extend for longer and stronger terms to contain the regime’s malign regional activity.
Twice last week, Biden’s envoy on Iran appeared in private hearings before Congress, a ratcheting up of pressure that points to fissures inside the Democratic Party over the policy.
The push from a top Senate Democrat suggests Biden could face political opposition at home if his negotiating team succeeds in Vienna, where talks with international partners are underway.
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It is not clear that the efforts to strike a deal will succeed. Negotiators were not able to reach an agreement last year, and the Biden administration has said that time is running out before advances in Iran’s nuclear program will make returning to the Obama-era pact impossible.
The push to bring Robert Malley, the U.S. special representative for Iran, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee intensified amid reports that Malley’s deputy had left the team after calling for implementing tougher sanctions. The hearing included Biden’s White House Middle East coordinator and a briefer from the Director of National Intelligence’s office.
Malley also provided a classified briefing for House members this week, appearing Tuesday via a secure video link from Vienna.
Under the terms of the deal, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, France, Britain, Russia, and China) and Germany had agreed to lift sanctions on Iran in return for verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear development program. Iran has denied interest in pursuing a nuclear weapon, but its nuclear advances have elevated concerns in Washington and among allies.
Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who opposed the deal in 2015, warned the White House earlier this month about a return. “At this point, we seriously have to ask what exactly are we trying to salvage?” he asked during remarks that lasted nearly an hour.
Menendez has said that while he was initially encouraged by the administration’s talk of a longer and stronger deal, that has elapsed as he waits for the Biden administration to “rigorously enforce” the current sanctions menu on Tehran.
Jason Brodsky, a policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, told the Washington Examiner that public scrutiny is warranted and questioned the prospect of reentering an accord that both Republicans and Democrats can’t get behind.
Without a bipartisan agreement, “we’re going to be left once again with an Iran policy that can’t last past one president,” Brodsky said.
Early in Biden’s term, Menendez called for pursuing a longer-reaching deal instead of returning to the original pact, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The U.S. is closer to a deal than before, heightening tensions over visibility into the policy that is being negotiated.
“Menendez would absolutely pick a fight and did against [former President Barack] Obama six years ago,” said Gabriel Noronha, a special adviser for Iran at the State Department under Secretary Mike Pompeo.
But the New Jersey senator is not the only top Democrat to have opposed the 2015 accord who could press Biden further. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland also came out against it.
Speaking about a return to the deal this week, Cardin argued that measures on Iran’s other malign activities “need to be on the table.”
Nevertheless, “it’s rare to have someone going onto the floor, attacking the president of their party on a policy issue,” Noronha said.
The possibility of an intraparty rift comes at a challenging time for Biden as the president seeks to rally lawmakers behind his stalled legislative agenda while attempting to avert a possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
While the Obama deal imposed some restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, it did not address the regime’s regional actions, including support for terrorist groups. The Trump administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018, reimposing U.S. sanctions and adding new ones in a bid to return Iran to the negotiating table for a deal with additional safeguards.
Critics of the JCPOA argue that the administration’s singular focus on returning to the pact suggests that Washington is willing to forfeit leverage over Iran on regional issues, including its financing of terrorist activities.
It is not clear that negotiations, which have been halting, will yield a result. Assessments have varied widely, with the U.S. offering sanguine pronouncements in the face of relative optimism by other parties to the talks.
Speaking to the Russian news outlet Kommersant, Russia’s representative, Mikhail Ulyanov, said the talks had come “a long way” and were “very close to achieving” success. He said they should come to an end “preferably this month.”
The U.S. has been less optimistic.
“[B]ased on where we are, it is more likely than not that we don’t succeed,” said a senior U.S. official, according to the Washington Post.
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Failure to salvage the accord would be a blow to Biden, who called for a return to the accord on the campaign trail and pledged “compliance for compliance” by eliminating nuclear-linked sanctions in exchange for Tehran’s return to the deal’s terms.
