Senators will press the Obama administration on Thursday to get tougher on enforcing limits on Iran as officials prepare to lift U.S. sanctions that have helped cripple the Iranian economy.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to hear from Stephen Mull, the State Department official charged with implementing the nuclear deal with Iran, on the administration’s plan to hold the Shiite Muslim theocracy in Tehran to its terms. Thomas Countryman, assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, and retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, head of the National Nuclear Security Agency, also are expected to appear.
The administration is expected by the end of the week to certify that Iran is complying with the deal reached July 14 in Vienna that sets limits on Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. But there’s widespread skepticism among Democrats and Republicans in Congress that Iran will hold to the agreement, fueled by the administration’s lack of response to such provocations as the testing of advanced, nuclear-capable ballistic missiles banned by U.N. sanctions that will stay in place for eight more years.
Lawmakers are most concerned about the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision Tuesday to close the file on Iran’s past nuclear work, even though a report said Iran had experimented with trying to build a nuclear weapon through 2009, later than had been previously thought, and was not as conclusive as many had expected.
“With inaction over the missile tests and an IAEA process that was not conducted with integrity, the nuclear deal is getting off to a terrible start. We know Iran concealed its nuclear weapons development and yet the investigation into possible military dimensions is now closed despite their deception,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said.
“As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continues its vigorous oversight of the nuclear deal this week, we will press the administration on the implications of these events and enforcement of the agreement.”
Under the agreement, President Obama is expected to waive nuclear-related U.S. sanctions once the IAEA certifies that Iran has taken steps to implement the deal, such as disposing of all but 300 tons of its stockpile of enriched uranium and mothballing most of the centrifuges used to enrich the element. This is expected to happen early next year.
Waiving the sanctions rather than repealing them allows the administration to quickly snap them back into place if Iran violates the deal. Meanwhile, U.S. sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, human rights violations and ballistic missile development will remain in place.
But lawmakers also are skeptical that will happen, pointing to the administration’s lack of response to Iran’s Oct. 10 test of a missile with a range sufficient to reach Israel, and with a maneuverable warhead that could defeat anti-missile defenses.
U.S. officials took their complaint about Iran’s ballistic missile tests to the U.N. Security Council, with disappointing results.
U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power on Tuesday said the council has “dithered” on holding Iran responsible for what a panel of experts concluded was a violation on U.N. prohibitions on ballistic missile development.
“We have seen a troubling tendency to look the other way when these measures have been willfully violated in recent months,” she told reporters.
Meanwhile, Iranian officials have staked out a position that any increase in sanctions, for any reason, could cause them to walk away from the deal, influencing the administration to oppose congressional efforts to tighten existing non-nuclear prohibitions.
“Having beaten the rules, Iran will be emboldened to further dictate which terms will be implemented, and which will not,” said House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif. “Until the Obama administration steps up and starts holding Iran accountable for its dangerous acts, the American people will be increasingly at risk.”
