Obama Renews Veto Pledge on Iran Sanctions Legislation
Passage of Iran sanctions legislation will torpedo administration efforts to diplomatically resolve the long-standing conflict with Iran over its nuclear enrichment ambitions, said President Barack Obama in his State of the Union. Obama vowed to veto the bill, and instead championed progress at the negotiating table. "Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material," said Obama.
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Some Iran sanctions opponents and business advocates say U.S., its P5+1 partners and Iran may reach a nuclear deal by March (see 1412090026). Liberalized trade relations will open the Iranian market to U.S. airplanes, airplane parts, agriculture and other U.S. exports, say those advocates.
Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., floated on Jan. 16 his draft Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act (here). In recent weeks, Kirk has also urged Senate lawmakers to hit a 67-vote veto proof majority on the bill (see 1412300001). The third-ranking Republican in the Senate John Thune, R-S.D., said recently Iran was a central item on the agenda for the outset of the 114th Congress (see 1501070057).
Such legislation threatens to divide the joint U.S.-European sanctions approach to Iran, said National Foreign Trade Council President Bill Reinsch and USAEngage Vice President Richard Sawaya in a Jan. 20 letter to lawmakers (here). “Some congressional review of an agreement seems inevitable, but we continue to believe that the best course Congress can take is to wait until the negotiations either conclude successfully or fail before acting,” said the letter. "Such a course presumably will give the nuclear negotiations maximum space to conclude free of political pressures and presumptive scapegoats and allow the United States and its allies a landscape on which to make rational policy decisions, whatever the outcome of the negotiations."
The top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told reporters before the State of the Union he preferred to not “disrupt” the negotiations through more sanctions (here). Meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee brought in administration officials on Jan. 21 for a hearing on the status of U.S.-Iran negotiations (here).