Congress Needs to Support Not Spoil Iran Negotiations

Last month negotiators from the P5+1 and Iran reached a historic agreement over Iran’s long disputed nuclear program.  The first step of a two-phase deal provides meaningful constraints on Iran’s nuclear program and provides a six-month period for the parties to come to a comprehensive resolution of the Iranian nuclear impasse. However, last week reports emerged of an effort, led by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for Congress to define the terms of a final agreement – before the negotiations on the final phase have begun. Cantor’s bill would reportedly call for the maximalist “zero enrichment” position for Iran’s program, a position analysts have deemed unrealistic. Micro-managing negotiations from Capitol Hill and pushing unworkable approaches undermines negotiators seeking a diplomatic solution, which remains the best way to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. Congress should work with the negotiators, not against them, to achieve the strongest possible deal for U.S. and allied interests.

Micro-managing and hand-tying from Congress could derail the best shot at prevention – Congress should work with negotiators for resolution. As Colin Kahl, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East explains, there is no need “at this point for Congress to pass additional sanctions legislation. Indeed, doing so would violate the letter and spirit of the Geneva agreement. Rushing ahead with fresh penalties now would almost certainly collapse the interim deal and likely end the prospects for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear challenge altogether. Instead, lawmakers should work closely with the Obama administration to ensure that Iran complies with the Geneva agreement and takes the next step toward a comprehensive accord. Congress should certainly be prepared to rapidly ramp up pressure again if Iran violates its commitments or drags its feet. But, as Congress does so, lawmakers should avoid the temptation to micromanage the negotiations as they enter the next phase. In particular, threatening new sanctions, or refusing to consider meaningful sanctions relief down the line, unless Iran meets a set of maximalist demands — such as a permanent end to all enrichment activities, no matter how constrained — would likely backfire, dooming diplomacy and increasing the odds of a nuclear-armed Iran, a war, or both.”

Additionally, in an interview this past weekend, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif explained the mindset coming from Iran. When asked, “What happens if Congress imposes new sanctions, even if they don’t go into effect for six months?” Zarif answered, “The entire deal is dead… if Congress adopts sanctions, it shows lack of seriousness and lack of a desire to achieve a resolution on the part of the United States.” [Colin Kahl, 11/27/13. TIME, 12/09/13]

A negotiated solution in which Iran makes the decision not to pursue a nuclear weapon remains the best way for prevention. Nine former ambassadors to Israel and Under Secretaries of State write in a letter, “More than any other option, a diplomatic breakthrough on this issue will help ensure Israel’s security and remove the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to the region generally and Israel specifically.” The other options remain limited, even the military option would be unlikely to fully prevent the program. As Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution explains, “Most of the evidence available indicates that a ‘limited’ military operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear program would be unlikely to remain limited. Iran would probably rebuild and retaliate, and we in turn would escalate. We could easily find ourselves in a much larger and longer war than we wanted. Here, as well, the loss of international support we would suffer from turning down the deal would undermine our military effort.” [Ambassadors Letter, 12/3/13. Kenneth Pollack, 11/15/13]

Without diplomatic effort, international pressure would be weakened. Former National Security Advisors Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski explain, “The United States has had the unprecedented cooperation of its allies and virtually the entire international community in this two track strategy [of pressure and diplomacy]. Should the United States fail to take this historic opportunity, we risk failing to achieve our non-proliferation goal and losing the support of allies and friends while increasing the probability of war.” As Robert Einhorn, the former State Department Iran arms control envoy, explains, “The sanctions that are now hurting Iran are not those imposed by the United States but by other countries… The Chinese, the Indians, the Turks, the South Koreans, and the Japanese: All of them have participated in this sanctions regime because they believed it was necessary to pressure the Iranians to negotiate seriously. If it now looks like we’re not negotiating seriously, we can expect support for sanctions to erode.” [Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, 11/18/13. Robert Einhorn, 11/12/13]

This is not a choice between good or ideal agreement, rather “good-enough” deal or realistic alternatives. Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former State Department director of policy planning in the Bush administration, describes the deal writing, “The measure of any diplomatic agreement cannot be the possible versus the ideal but rather the possible versus the realistic alternatives, in this case either living with an Iranian nuclear weapons capability that would lead others in the already unstable Middle East to follow suit or launching a preventive military strike without knowing in advance what it would accomplish or set in motion. This interim pact is far preferable to either alternative.” [Richard Haas, 11/24/13]