Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez has amped up his push for new sanctions on Iran — and rekindled a long standing tiff with the Obama administration over how best to rein in the Middle East country’s nuclear program.
The New Jersey Democrat on Wednesday suggested the administration hasn’t taken a strong enough stance with Iran during ongoing multi-nation negotiations to dismantle Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, a move he says threatens to undermine the U.S. bargaining position.
“While I believe the administration’s diplomatic efforts to terminate Iran’s illicit nuclear program should be commended, I am concerned that Iran has not demonstrated a sincere interest in reaching agreement and has used these talks to chip away at our positions,” Menendez said during a committee hearing.
The U.S. and five other countries — the so called P5+1 — failed to reach an agreement last month with Iran to resolve their 12-year stand-off over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and gave themselves seven more months to clinch a deal. In the meantime, the P5+1 agreed not to impose new economic sanctions on Iran.
But Menendez has accused Iran of stalling and said giving Tehran more time at the negotiating table is “playing right into the Iranian narrative.”
“While they have maximized their demands at the negotiating table, we have minimized ours, with no consequences,” he said. “This is a worst-case scenario … and could leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state.”
Menendez has proposed attaching an Iran sanctions amendment to a defense authorization bill that the Senate is scheduled to take up this month.
But the administration has argued that imposing fresh economic sanctions on Tehran could upend the talks aimed at rolling back Iran’s nuclear program and any chance of striking a permanent deal.
The State Department and administration officials have launched a full-court press this week to make the case to lawmakers to hold off on new Iran sanctions.
Wednesday’s hearing featured the testimony from three defense think-tank experts but was conspicuously lacking any administration officials.
Mendenez expressed frustration over the White House denying his request to send a representative to the public hearing, saying it had made a witness available for a past hearing.
“I don’t know what has changed so dramatically that we couldn’t have [an administration official available] in a public setting … and have a broader discussion of what we hope to achieve, what we’re trying to achieve, where we’re at in very broad terms,” he said. “But that’s the administration’s decision.”
Committee witness Gary Samore of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government said the P5+1 shouldn’t make any new offers until Iran shows that they’re serious about coming to an agreement.
He added that it’s important for the U.S. and its allies begin preparing for a resumption of sanctions as early as March, if no agreement is reached.
“We need to try to position ourself so that Iran is responsible for breaking out of the negotiations instead of ourselves,” he said.
But Menendez said if that’s the case, kicking the ball down road doesn’t solve the problem.
“You’re going to have a blame game at some point if you cannot succeed. … But my concern is that we’re heading in a direction that the Iranians are induced to continue the negations because it’s moving in their direction and they’re getting” no new economic sanctions, he said.
Sen. Tim Kane, D-Va., said he approved of extending the talks with Iran and warned of forcing through a flawed deal.
“I think we all agree that a bad deal is worse than no deal,” he said. “That said, I’m glad we’re continuing to have these discussions. Did any of you think that when we didn’t have a deal at the end of November that we should’ve stopped all discussions? Should that have been our policy?”
