Iran deal tantalizingly close, but US faces new hurdles

WASHINGTON (AP) — Last week’s attack on author Salman Rushdie and the indictment of an Iranian national for plotting to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton have given the Biden administration new headaches as it tries to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. .

A resolution may be tantalizingly close. But as the United States and Europe weigh Iran’s latest response to an EU proposal described as the West’s final offer, the administration faces new and potentially insurmountable domestic political obstacles to forging a lasting agreement.

Critics of the deal in Congress who have long vowed to blow up any deal have increased their opposition to negotiations with a country whose leaders have refused to rescind death threats against Rushdie or Bolton. Iran also vows to avenge the assassination of a top Iranian general by the Trump administration in 2020 by killing former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iran envoy Brian Hook, who remain under 24-hour taxpayer-paid security protection. , 7 days a week.

Although such threats are not covered by the deal, which relates solely to Iran’s nuclear program, they underscore arguments by opponents of the deal that Iran cannot be trusted with the billions of dollars in sanctions relief it will receive if he and the US Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, a trademark foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration that President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018.

“This is a harder sell than the 2015 deal, as there are no illusions this time around that it will serve to moderate Iranian behavior or lead to greater US-Iran cooperation,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert. from Carnegie Endowment. for International Peace.

“The Iranian government stands to get tens of billions in sanctions relief, and the regime’s organizing principle will continue to be opposition to the United States and violence against its critics, both at home and abroad,” he said.

Iran has denied any link with Rushdie’s alleged attacker, a US citizen who was charged with attempted murder and has pleaded not guilty to the August 12 stabbing at a literary event in western New York. But Iranian state media have celebrated Iran’s longstanding antipathy toward Rushdie since the 1988 publication of his book “The Satanic Verses,” which some believe is an insult to Islam.

Media linked to Iran’s leadership praised the attacker for complying with a 1989 decree, or fatwa, calling for Rushdie to be killed and signed by Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

And the man who was accused of plotting to assassinate Bolton is a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Department of Justice alleges that the IRGC tried to pay $300,000 to people in the United States to avenge the death of Qassam Suleimani, the head of his elite Quds Force who was killed by a US airstrike in Iraq in 2020.

“I think it’s wishful thinking to believe that a regime you’re about to enter into a major arms control agreement with can be depended on to live up to its obligations or even be serious about negotiating when it’s planning assassination.” of former high-ranking officials. current government officials and government officials,” Bolton told reporters Wednesday.

“It certainly appears that the attack on Salman Rushdie had a Revolutionary Guard component,” Bolton said. “We have to stop this artificial divide when dealing with the government of Iran between its nuclear activities on the one hand and its terrorist activities on the other.”

Others agree.

“Giving terror sanctions relief amid ongoing terror plots on American soil is somewhere between outrageous and insane,” said Rich Goldberg, a former Trump administration national security council staffer and longtime critic of deals. time, who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. that he has also lobbied against a return to the JCPOA.

While acknowledging the seriousness of the plots, administration officials say they are unrelated to the nuclear issue and do nothing to change their long-held belief that an Iran with a nuclear weapon would be more dangerous and less limited than a They will go without her.

“The JCPOA is about the single, central challenge that we face with Iran, the central challenge, what would be the most threatening challenge that we could possibly face from Iran, and that is a nuclear weapon,” State Department spokesman Mr. NedPrice. “There is no question that a nuclear-armed Iran would feel an even greater degree of impunity and would pose an even greater threat, a much greater threat to countries in the region and potentially far beyond.”

“Every challenge we face with Iran, whether it be its support for proxies, its support for terrorist groups, its ballistic missile program, its malicious cyber activities, every one of them, would be more difficult to deal with if Iran had a nuclear weapon. . weapons program,” he said.

That argument, however, will be challenged in Congress by lawmakers who opposed the 2015 deal, saying it gave Iran a path to develop nuclear weapons by limiting the length of the most onerous restrictions on its nuclear activities. They say there is now even more tangible evidence that Iran’s malign behavior makes it impossible to deal with.

Two of the deal’s most outspoken critics, Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, weighed in on what Rushdie’s attack should mean for the administration.

“The ayatollahs have been trying to assassinate Salman Rushdie for decades,” Cruz said. “Your goading of him and his contacts with this terrorist resulted in an attack. This vicious terrorist attack must be completely condemned. The Biden administration must finally stop appeasing the Iranian regime.”

“Iran’s leaders have called for the assassination of Salman Rushdie for decades,” Cotton said. “We know that they are trying to assassinate American officials today. Biden needs to immediately end negotiations with this terrorist regime.”

Under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA, the administration must submit any deal with Iran for review in Congress within five days after it is sealed. That begins a 30-day review period during which lawmakers can weigh in and sanctions relief cannot be offered.

That timeline means that even if a deal is reached within the next week, the administration won’t be able to start moving forward on sanctions relief until the end of September, just a month before crucial midterm legislative elections. And it will take longer for Iran to begin to see the benefits of such relief due to logistical constraints.

While critics of the deal in the current Congress are unlikely to be able to kill off a deal, if Republicans regain control of Congress in the midterm elections, they may be able to nullify any sanctions relief.

“Even if Iran agrees to President Biden’s total capitulation and agrees to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal, Congress will never vote to remove sanctions,” the minority Republican on the House Armed Services Committee said in a statement. tweet on Wednesday. “In fact, Republicans in Congress will work to strengthen sanctions against Iran.”

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