Republicans and Democrats See the Iran Deal for What It Is

By Carine Hajjar

Wednesday, April 06, 2022

 

Though President Biden promised a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear deal that currently sits on the table is weaker and more dangerous.

 

Republicans, who fought against Obama’s JCPOA, are predictably calling for an end to negotiations.

 

Earlier today, Republicans from the House Foreign Affairs Committee hosted a press conference to denounce Biden’s Iran deal. Congressman Andy Barr (R., Ky.) said Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy was working, and Biden’s current attempt amounts to a “flawed deal” that cannot go forward. To Barr and his colleagues, the JCPOA-minus is “flawed in process, flawed in substance, and flawed in verification protocols,” according to Barr.

 

As I wrote yesterday, Obama’s (already weak) Iran deal has always been a partisan issue — that is, until Biden botched it even further. Now even Democrats are speaking out.

 

Earlier today, Democratic Representatives Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Elaine Luria of Virginia led a press conference representing a group of 18 House Democrats in opposing the deal. Luria started off saying, “As a group, we have a variety of concerns; everywhere from concern about the negotiations all the way to . . . outright opposition.”

 

Congressman Juan Vargas (D., Calif.) criticized Biden for keeping Congress “in the dark” despite “fatal flaws.”

 

Participants called out the shocking revelations about the proposal to remove Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s “foreign terrorist organization” listing and Russia’s role in negotiations. Luria said it’s “completely unacceptable that it would be considered as part of this negotiation to lift Iran’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp.” Gottheimer asked: “Are we seriously going to let a war criminal, Vladimir Putin, be the guarantor of this deal?” The group went on to list a myriad of other weakness, including the heightened possibility of hostility between Iran and Israel.

 

Luria said “the old JCPOA did not work” and that any deal that “does not fully prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is unacceptable.” (The deal in question all but paves the road to an internationally approved Iranian nuke.)

 

While more and more Democrats are calling out the deal, they would still need a veto-proof two-thirds majority in Congress to vote it down under the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. That’s an uphill battle, but Biden isn’t taking any chances: He’ll package a new deal — should it go through — as a return to the JCPOA to circumvent a congressional vote.

 

Even considering such a maneuver points to a flimsy deal.

 

But perhaps the greatest sign of the deal’s weakness is that its own authors have walked away. As Richard Goldberg reminded this morning:

 

House D press conference warning against Iran nuclear deal reminds us that key members of Biden's Iran negotiating team left their posts in December as chief envoy kept making worse and worse concessions. The deal on the table now is so bad, WH will face more and more opposition.