March 4, 2022

Rewarding Iran's Bad Behavior


KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The Biden administration is expected to announce a new deal on Iran’s nuclear program that will strengthen our adversaries while failing to achieve a long-term and durable solution ending Iran’s illicit nuclear program.
  • The sanctions relief in this new agreement will be far more extensive than what Iran received under the 2015 Iran deal.
  • The administration seems intent on shielding its deal from congressional oversight as required by the constitution and the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

The Biden administration is expected to announce as soon as next week that it has negotiated a new nuclear agreement with Iran to take the place of the 2015 agreement that the United States withdrew from in 2018. It is likely to be a far cry from President Biden’s campaign promise of a comprehensive deal that would eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat and address its other bad behavior. U.S. military leaders have warned that giving Iran relief from sanctions would create a significant risk of funding terrorism. It seems the administration is again ignoring military advice and is even signaling it will ignore the Senate’s duty to ratify the agreement. The final deal will be no more durable than the last agreement the Obama administration negotiated, and it will be worse for U.S. security.

A Weak New Deal

In an article last month, Reuters reported that, in a draft of the agreement, the Iranians will receive $7 billion of frozen funds and will free Americans the regime is holding hostage. The U.S. also would waive and remove sanctions in return for Iran returning to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal limitations. Many of the sanctions that would be waived are likely related to Iran’s terrorism and ballistic missile activity. Under the timeline set in the 2015 agreement, which is expected to be resumed, all restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program would cease in less than 10 years, with the international sanction snapback provision expiring by 2025, giving the international community only three years of leverage over Iran’s illicit activities. The administration will try to claim this is just a return to the original deal, but this relief is a new deal that goes beyond the original 2015 agreement. 

Biden Administration Negotiates a One-Sided Deal

Biden Administration Negotiates a One-Sided Deal

If those details end up in the final agreement, they would run counter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s promise to Congress that any new deal would be “longer and stronger” than the hopelessly flawed 2015 deal. It would also break his promise to impose the “toughest possible sanctions” on Iran for its support of terrorism. Even some Democrats are voicing concerns over how much the Biden administration seems prepared to give away. In reaction to reports about how the agreement is shaping up, Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said: “I have a pretty good sense of what I think ‘longer’ and ‘stronger’ means. ‘Longer’ is obvious, more time. ‘Stronger’ – dealing with elements that had not been previously dealt with. However, a year later, I have yet to hear any parameters of ‘longer’ or ‘stronger’ terms or whether that is even a feasible prospect.”

a good deal for america’s adversaries

The 2015 Iran agreement was meant to apply only to nuclear-related sanctions. Congress and the White House have imposed other sanctions on Iran over the years in response to the regime’s support for terrorism and other bad behavior beyond its nuclear program. That behavior is unchanged; if the U.S. were to waive terrorism sanctions, it would be because of politics, not because of any changes on the ground. Iran and its proxies – including the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria ? continue to target Americans and our allies. The Iranians are pushing to remove the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a “foreign terrorist organization.” The Iranians also are accelerating their progress in nuclear weapon technology, and they are testing ballistic missile technology to deliver a nuclear warhead to a target. If the Biden administration waives sanctions that were imposed against this research, it would be rewarding Iran’s belligerent behavior.

In 2020, the U.S. implemented sanctions to ensure that other countries did not sell arms to Iran after the original deal ended a U.N. arms embargo. The new deal could remove those sanctions, allowing China and Russia to sell advanced weapons to the regime. This would enrich our adversaries’ weapons industries and their regional influence, while giving Iran more advanced weapons it can use to support terrorists.

IGNORING the constitution and CONGRESS

The U.S. Constitution specifies that the president “shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur.” The Obama administration ignored this duty when entering the original 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and the Biden administration seems intent to do the same with its new agreement.

The Biden administration also seems ready to ignore the basic oversight role of Congress. Under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which passed in 2015, the administration is obligated to submit any new nuclear deal and the supporting documents to Congress within five days of entering the agreement. The administration then has to wait 30 days before any sanctions relief can begin. During this time, Congress could hold hearings and block the deal from moving forward. This is the bare minimum for the administration, yet there are concerns it will be ignored.

The Biden administration has generally been avoiding its basic duty to inform Congress of its Iran strategy and has yet to publicly brief Congress on its Iran strategy. Prior to entering a new deal, the administration should work with Congress to develop specific plans to deal with Iran’s nuclear and non-nuclear activities.

Thirty-three Senate Republicans warned in a letter that if the administration enters this deal without congressional oversight or approval, they will work to block it. The letter also noted that an agreement not approved by the Senate will not bind the U.S. to any durable commitment – it could be thrown out by President Biden’s successor, as happened with the weak 2015 deal. The Biden administration should work with Congress, not just Iran, if it wants to ensure a lasting and strong deal.

Issue Tag: National Security