UN likely to vote on Iran deal next week, but some US lawmakers cry foul

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has scheduled a vote for Monday morning on a resolution endorsing the historic nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — and the speed with which that vote has come up, so close after the deal’s signing, is rankling some in the U.S. Congress.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power circulated a draft resolution in support of the JCPOA to the 15- council members Wednesday, including the other permanent members of the UNSC (China, Russia, France, and the U.K.)

Some U.S. lawmakers questioned the timing of a UNSC vote before the Monday date was set.

“We are deeply concerned that your administration plans to enable the United Nations Security Council to vote on the agreement before the United States Congress can do the same,” said a statement to Obama released by Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We urge you to postpone the vote at the United Nations until after Congress considers this agreement."

U.S. lawmakers voted in May to tie any final agreement to a subsequent Congressional review, a bill that Obama reluctantly signed after it became apparent that it was unlikely to successfully conduct the agreement without a review from Congress that many legislators demanded.

Under that legislation, Congress can register its opposition to the Iran deal, which would prevent Obama from lifting a number of sanctions that are key to making the deal work.

But the chief U.S. negotiator in the Iran talks, Wendy Sherman, rejected the idea Thursday that the U.S. should delay the U.N. vote or that it undermines Congressional review.

"It would have been a little difficult when all of the [countries negotiating with Iran] wanted to go to the United Nations to get an endorsement of this, since it is a product of the United Nations process, for us to say, ‘Well, excuse me, the world, you should wait for the United States Congress.’”

Sherman added that the council resolution allows the "time and space" for U.S. Congressional review before the measure takes effect.

Tyler Cullis, a legal fellow at the National Iranian American Council, explained that a delay period exists in the JCPOA precisely to allow for review.

“[The] JCPOA does not come into effect until Adoption Day, which is 90 days after the new UNSCR is passed,” he said. “This delay period was instituted only because of Congress.”

The deal signed Tuesday tasks the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, with determining whether Iran is upholding its nuclear-related obligations to the agreement. The Security Council resolution, which is all but certain to pass unanimously, is needed to enshrine that function, which becomes the mechanism for removing the sanctions on Iran in exchange for caps to its nuclear program.

“The [Security Council] resolution will endorse the JCPOA and terminate all the U.N. nuclear-related sanctions to be effective on the Implementation Day, which is when the IAEA verifies that Iran has completed its key nuclear commitments,” said Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst with the International Crisis Group.

The implementation would likely happen sometime in the beginning of 2016. In the meantime, “The nuclear sanctions will remain in place until the IAEA verifies that Iran has completed its key nuclear commitments,” said Vaez.

Since 2006, the UNSC has passed seven resolutions concerning Iran’s disputed nuclear program. Among them are the economic sanctions that are due to be removed by the deal.

Under the terms of the JCPOA and the UNSC draft resolution, circulated by Power, the sanctions will be automatically reenacted — or “snapped-back” — if a JCPOA-created commission of the signatories determines Tehran to be in breach of the agreement.

If Iran adheres to the terms of the JCPOA, the question of Iran’s nuclear program would be removed from the Security Council’s agenda after 10 years — in 2025, according to the deal earlier this week.

Even if the U.S. Congress rejects the Iran deal, Obama can override it and to overcome that veto, Obama’s political opponents would need to marshal a two-thirds majority in both houses — no easy task.

“I think it’s highly improbable that they will vote it down [to a veto proof majority], but there will be a tremendous amount of noise between now and then,” said Gary Sick, a Columbia University professor and a former National Security Council Iran specialist for three U.S. administrations.

But the Iran deal was not negotiated as a treaty, so it does not carry the binding force of U.S. law. That means a future U.S. president could alter its implementation.

In the short-term though, analysts say U.N. approval could make skeptical U.S. lawmakers wary of undercutting the Iran deal.

“It will make the case very strongly that all of the rest of the world is lined up on this issue,” said Sick of a passed UNSC resolution.

Or, as Vaez said, “While Congress might not care much about matters of international law, the repercussions of flouting an Iran deal and a U.N. Security Council resolution might temper their appetite for confrontation.”