For President Obama, striking a tentative agreement on curbing Iran’s nuclear program began an even harder task of selling to Congress a legacy-defining deal with Tehran.
The initial understanding between Western and Iranian negotiators put into overdrive White House efforts to fend off lawmakers intent on slowing or even scuttling an arrangement that Obama would like to finalize unilaterally.
Obama fired an unmistakable salvo at lawmakers Thursday, essentially warning them to get on board or absorb the blame for sinking a deal of historic proportions. Rather than extend an olive branch to critics of his Iran blueprint, the president initiated a public shaming campaign against those who would oppose him.
“If Congress kills this deal not based on expert analysis, and without offering any reasonable alternative, then it’s the United States that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy,” the president warned Republicans — and even a handful of Democrats — from the Rose Garden. “International unity will collapse, and the path to conflict will widen.”
On the negotiating front, administration officials will work to finalize a deal by June 30th that would limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for lifting sanctions that have crippled the Middle Eastern nation’s economy. Iran would eliminate more than two-thirds of its uranium-producing centrifuges and agree to limits on its enrichment of uranium for a decade.
As if securing the final language on the deal weren’t difficult enough — questions remain about the pace of sanctions relief and how easily Iran would let inspectors review its enrichment sites — Republicans appeared even more resolute in their insistence that Congress get a vote on any final pact.
The White House objective now is to keep lawmakers from amassing veto-proof majorities to bills that would place new sanctions on Iran or require congressional approval of the terms reached with Tehran. Those efforts will likely center on getting centrist Democrats to hold their fire, more than win over conservatives who have virtually no political incentive to go along with the president on an Iran deal.
But analysts said that such a push would prove tricky for Obama.
“Will Congress and the administration focus on verification or is this going to become a partisan mess with interference from other countries?” wondered Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke chairman in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Any arms control agreement is a process that has to be judged by enforcement over a period of years. If this remains a test based on politics and whether we can trust rather than verify, then no arms agreement is workable.”
The lofty way in which Obama framed the “historic understanding with Iran” Thursday seemingly did little to alter the calculus of lawmakers wary of such an arrangement.
“If diplomats can negotiate for two years on this issue, then certainly Congress is entitled to a review period of an agreement that will fundamentally alter our relationship with Iran and the sanctions imposed by Congress,” said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., whose recent indictment on corruption charges has not lessened his insistence that lawmakers have the last word on an agreement.
Obama, who has been frequently criticized for a lack of outreach to Capitol Hill, began Thursday new efforts to get lawmakers to stand down until after the June 30th deadline for a final accord. He also phoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he has accused of trying to sabotage the nuclear negotiations.
For ordinary Americans, what had been an abstract possibility has become far more tangible with the Obama administration producing a nuclear framework that went well beyond what many observers expected. As such, the White House needs to keep public opinion on its side.
In his most direct public lobbying on the Iran deal to date, the president framed the ongoing talks in the same light as President John F. Kennedy negotiating at the height of the Cold War and Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan striking arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, daring Republicans to risk being on the wrong side of history.
“When you hear the inevitable critics of the deal sound off, ask them a simple question: Do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented, backed by the world’s major powers, is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?” Obama told the public. “Is it worse than doing what we’ve done for almost two decades, with Iran moving forward with its nuclear program and without robust inspections? I think the answer will be clear.”
White House officials then stepped up the pressure on those who could block their agenda on Capitol Hill.
“We think it’s best for members of Congress to take a look at the framework and then give [us] the space to negotiate the final details between now and June,” a senior administration official said on Thursday.
“Do not do something that could derail the negotiations,” the official implored members of Congress.
The White House had the good fortune of reaching the understanding with Iran while lawmakers were away from Washington on their Easter recess.
The wait-and-see approach many took on Thursday will soon fade away, especially if administration officials are unable to provide a clearer portrait of how they plan to ensure Iranian cooperation.
And a number of Republican lawmakers ignored White House warnings altogether, insisting that Obama was essentially receiving temporary commitments from the Iranians in exchange for permanent sanctions relief.
“I will work with my colleagues in the Senate to protect America from this very dangerous proposal and to stop a nuclear arms race in the world’s most volatile region,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who had already authored a letter to Iranian leaders reminding them that Congress could spike any deal brokered with the Obama administration.
