John Bradshaw Quoted In Politico On Nuclear Negotiations With Iran
Hill could muddle Iran nuclear negotiations
By Philip Ewing
November 7, 2013 | Politico
U.S. negotiators are returning to Geneva to resume nuclear talks with Iran on Thursday, but one of their biggest stumbling blocks could be back home in Washington.
Key members of Congress are skeptical about letting up on the sanctions that have devastated Iran’s economy until it agrees to make major concessions about its nuclear enrichment program. But the White House says it must be able to talk with Iran in good faith about scaling back its nuclear ambitions — even as famously independent lawmakers in both parties vow to keep the pressure on.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are two Iran hawks who believe the U.S. must continue to tighten its grip. Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) also want to keep up the pressure.
The Senate Banking Committee, which has handled many past sanctions measures, appears unlikely to pursue any of them soon. But Iran hawks have suggested they’ll try another tack — offering amendments when the Senate takes up the National Defense Authorization Act later this month.
Iran scholar Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution said the White House believes it has a great hand as it goes back to the poker table with Tehran — except for the joker that is Congress.
“I’m surprised by [the] degree of confidence I hear from [the] administration,” she told reporters in a conference call Wednesday. “If anything, their greatest concern at the moment is Congress. Despite the expectation that they appear to be making traction in an eight-week pause on the latest round of sanctions, I think they see a real wild card, particularly if there isn’t a tangible takeaway from these talks in Geneva.”
Maloney said she thought the White House and the State Department know that important players want more sanctions, but “the administration obviously recognizes that this would be a poison pill. It would feed into the Iranian narrative that the administration or the U.S. is not really interested in a deal, but only interested in eroding the capability and legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.”
One thing that could help the White House stave off more pressure on Iran is the high bar that amendments are expected to have to clear — a 60-vote threshold, according to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who’ll be managing the annual defense policy bill.
“If someone offers an additional Iran sanctions amendment, that’s going to be a highly controversial amendment,” Levin told reporters. “I’ve opposed [additional sanctions]. I think we should explore the possibilities of working out something with Iran, as skeptical as we are. We ought to explore that without adding to the sanctions that exist, because it could really weaken the coalition that favors Iran sanctions, in other words, Russia, China — countries that have gone along with the sanctions we have — which are working.”
Even if Levin and White House allies can hold off new sanctions in Congress, however, there’s a risk that Iranians could read the by-play in Washington as an attempt to undercut the process. Maloney cited a translation of a recent speech by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he aired familiar suspicions about the U.S.
“It will not make you terribly optimistic for the long-term prospects for either a deal or a deal leading to any broader rapprochement,” Maloney said. “His view of Washington remains as decidedly nefarious as it has ever been. He has sought to defend positions of his negotiations publicly, but he’s also indicated a very strong skepticism that they’ll be able to produce a kind of deal he would accept.”
John Bradshaw, executive director of the National Security Network, said he believed Iran had a sophisticated enough understanding about American politics that it could differentiate action in Congress from the offers or positions of the Obama administration.
“I think that, at least, the administration’s negotiation team doesn’t see that as a possibility,” he said. The Iranians “have a pretty clear understanding of what’s going on there.”
Jim Walsh, an MIT security researcher who also was on the conference call, said he thought there was just as much possibility that members of Congress could embrace the Iran negotiations after their experience this summer with facing a vote to authorize military action on Syria. Americans found the prospect of another Middle Eastern war so distasteful, Walsh said, that he could foresee members of Congress opting for diplomacy with Iran to avoid feeling boxed in like that again.
“There may be more play in the system than you would guess from the public statements that senators make,” he said.
Walsh said he worries about the Obama administration overplaying its hand as much as he worries about Congress.
“They can say, ‘Aha, the sanctions are working, the Iranians want a deal, that’s a sign of weakness, we can get whatever we want.’ That’s a sure way for these negotiations to fail. That’s a movie we’ve seen before … where one side is ready, one is not, one miscalculated, one side thinks it is the driver seat. … I just hope that movie is not playing at the end of this week.”
Austin Wright contributed to this report.
