As a staffer on Capitol Hill when Barack Obama was elected, I was in the meetings with AIPAC in which -- facing a president with enormous political capital and a pro-diplomacy agenda -- they claimed to support talks with Iran. This despite the savaging that Obama as a candidate endured from Iran hawks and so-called "pro-Israel" groups because of his pledge to break with the Bush administrations refusal to engage adversaries.
But in those Hill meetings, we weren't being lobbied to support diplomacy, we were being lobbied to sign onto sanctions that AIPAC said were necessary as the next step if and when the talks did not yield results. Those sanctions would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We now know what would happen next -- Netanyahu pressed Obama to place artificial timetables on engagement, and Congress wielded the threat of passing unilateral crippling sanctions like a sword of Damocles over the U.S.-Iran talks.
Sure enough, after much back and forth, once Iran eventually accepted a deal to ship out its low enriched uranium (after Netanyahu's imposed deadline had expired), it was too late -- Congressional sanctions were already queued up for quick passage. The president could choose to pursue Iran's offer and watch Congress upend it by passing unilateral sanctions, also scuttling a hard fought multilateral sanctions resolution queued up at the UN. Or, he could reject Iran's offer and implement the UN sanctions in the nick of time before Congress passed their unilateral sanctions. Either way, Congress was going to pass its sanctions.
The president went with option B, and now we have some of the most stringent multilateral and unilateral sanctions ever in place on a country, but no progress in terms of actually resolving the Iranian nuclear standoff.
While this was all happening, the refrain from Congress (and AIPAC) was that we couldn't let Iran buy time; so long as the negotiations were happening, they said, Iran's centrifuges were spinning. The irony is that over the past three years, as we've sanctioned instead of negotiated, Iran's centrifuges still continue to spin.
This time around, Congress is again waving sanctions as the sword of Damocles over new talks -- warning that Iran is just "buying time," and threatening sanctions that will sabotage any potential progress.
What is on the line at the talks is capping Iran's nuclear program -- preventing Iran's centrifuges from enriching uranium closer to the weapons grade that is the real concern, and paving the path for a continued diplomatic process that is the only way to impose inspections and transparency that can prevent a nuclear armed Iran.
Furthermore, such measures that steer us in the direction of a diplomatic endgame, rather than war, can tamp down gas prices and immediately benefit ordinary Americans -- who are paying an estimated five dollar "loose war talk" surtax every time they fill up their gas tanks.
To achieve near-term concessions on the Iranian side, and to build on those measures, sanctions will likely need to be leveraged -- whether by freezing them at current levels or easing some of them. But instead of providing the president with the flexibility to utilize the sanctions for their intended purpose -- as leverage -- expect a major Congressional push in the opposite direction, to instead expand sanctions and ensure the president can't use them for diplomatic progress.
Additionally, there will likely be a redoubled Congressional effort to press forward with a stalled AIPAC and Netanyahu-endorsed push to redefine the diplomatic endgame in such a way as to rule out any plausible, inspections-based solution. This is effectively an effort to shift the goal posts and demand a maximalist, unachievable endgame, including that Iran end all enrichment and ship out all nuclear material.
The main vehicle for this push is the "red lines" resolution (S.Res.380/H.Res.568), which states that the U.S. cannot contain a nuclear weapons capable Iran, rather than the president's defined red line of a nuclear weapons armed Iran. Ruling out "capability," though the term has not been defined, could bar any solution in which Iran maintains even a highly monitored enrichment program -- the only plausible solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff.
So, if the talks this weekend yield progress, hawks will say, "Ah ha -- that progress was only because of sanctions, so we need more and we need to shift the goal posts to achieve maximalist ends." If the talks don't yield progress, hawks will say, "Ah ha -- that stalemate is because the sanctions are not crippling enough, so we need more and we need to shift the goal posts to ensure maximalist ends." Either way, Congress is pushing its sanctions. And if a new Congressional sanctions push is successful, the president may be blocked -- either politically or perhaps even legally -- from leveraging sanctions in exchange for Iranian concessions, killing any deal.
Follow Jamal Abdi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jabdi
MJ Rosenberg: What Will Obama Do if Iran Says Yes But the Lobby & Congress Say NO?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-children-of-fallujah--sayefs-story-7675977.html
http://www.divestfromwar.org/
http://www.divestfromwar.org/
Pakistan, a country whose military has a history of supporting extremist Islam (even dating before the 1979 Iranian revolution) already possesses nuclear weapons. since 9/11 the security around the Pakistani nuclear weapons has been breached by Al-Qaedah several times. More significantly, Pakistan does not recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel. All that and more, yet, we're splitting hairs over the hypothetical and the unknown with regards to Iran. As long ago as 1992 Israel was warning the world that by 1999 (13 years ago) Iran would have a nuclear bomb. Since 2003 we've been continually warned by the same people that Iran will acquire "THE BOMB" within 6 months. The absurdity of the situation is that even Israeli leaders ( to quote one Dan Meridor) don't believe that Iran has ever called for the destruction of Israel.
The regime in Tehran has since its founding been operating on a survivalist ideology and the Iranian People have been the biggest victims of its policies.
This is all about Israel's position as the only true regional power threatened by Iran. Israel and its allies see regime change as the only effective solution which 99% of Iranians would support, however, we would prefer it done internally by the people and not by raining down bombs and missiles on our towns and cities.
Tell you what, why don't you post here the part or parts of the Iranian constitution that call for the "liberation" and "recapture" of Jerusalem so we can see for ourselves what's remained hidden from Persian scholars and speakers alike for over 33 years.
Another thing, would you also care to elaborate on the term "recapture"? I'm fascinated that there are even aspects of Iranian history that have been deliberately kept hidden since before the 1979 revolution.
I have to say I'm always impressed when foreigners show such deep insight into our language and history.
liberating and recapturing Jerusalem..
I have looked at it and there is no mention, express or implied, of liberating or recapturing any place.
You know, it's funny, on the one hand we're lead to believe that Iran is ruled by fundamentalist Muslims and on the other we're told by the same people that the regime aims to nuke out of existence the second-most holy site in Islam. Consistency doesn't seem to be a strong attribute of the pro-war camp.
I am an Iranian and I too speak fluent Persian and I can categorically confirm that there is no subtext to Ahmadinejad's misquoted quote, nor any other fictitious pronouncements made by regime leaders. At any rate, if Israel got the slightest hint of Iran's intention to attack, it would wipe Iran off the map several times over with its arsenal of nuclear weapons.
I've no affection for the madcap mullahs, but I like the pro-war camp here even less.
I think I've seen this movie once or twice already and it doesn't end well.
Either everyone get rid of them, or everyone have them...
Can we expect another trumped up war, Iraq-style, to follow?
Isn't it more than coincidental how we provoke only these oil-rich leftover medieval countries into this? Our foreign policy seems to make the plot of the film Syriana more & more real every yr.
Our OIL......is under their SOIL
Oh don't get me wrong: they are near critical sea lanes, and could give the U.S. big trouble. But then an individual (Timothy McVeigh) gave the U.S. big trouble, so how is that "avoidance of trouble" somehow the magical standard of whether to sanction or fear another nation?
Iran can be the biggest jackass of a nation, but that does not excuse the U.S.'s war mongering. Let's remember that the sainted Ronnie Reagan also warned us that one of the two poorest nations in the hemisphere (Nicaragua) was a threat to the U.S., and prosecuted an illegal war there. The other poorest nation: Haiti (where our war has been more covert).
Reagan famously asked the Mexican president to endorse his evaluation of Nicaragua as a threat. The Mexican president replied that he would be happy to help his friend Ronald if there were any way he could do it without being laughed out of office.
We may just be Israeli puppets when it comes to Iran, but it's impossible to expect us to keep a straight face about it.