Iran nuclear deal debate heats up despite Capitol Hill summer recess

President Barack Obama on Wednesday made a forceful case to U.S. legislators to avoid scuppering last month’s landmark Iran nuclear agreement when they return next month from their summer recess.

The administration is trying to convince fence sitters, particularly Democrats, that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), finalized in Vienna on July 14, is not only the best way but the only way of verifiably preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons for at least a decade.

Speaking at American University, where President John F. Kennedy gave a major arms control speech 52 years ago, Obama argued that the JCPOA is a “very good deal” that is more “effective, verifiable and durable” than any alternative, including war. He told the audience that the policies of George W. Bush failed to stop Iran’s nuclear advances and that the 2003 invasion of Iraq had only strengthened Iran. Those opposing the JCPOA, Obama said, without naming any of them, include many who argued that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that overthrowing its regime would be relatively easy.

“Wars in general and in the Middle East in particular are anything but simple,” he said.

Opponents of the deal, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are just as vigorously contesting its provisions and arguing that a better deal can be obtained without military action. In a live webcast organized by U.S. Jewish groups on Tuesday and watched by more than 16,000 people, Netanyahu exhorted American Jews to lobby Congress even harder to reject what he called “a very dangerous deal.”

He repeated his assertion that the JCPOA “paves Iran’s path to the bomb” whether the Islamic Republic abides by the agreement or violates it. If it keeps to the deal, he said, Iran would still be poised to make “dozens” if not “hundreds” of weapons when key elements of the agreement expire in 10 to 15 years. If it cheats, the Israeli leader claimed, Iran would get nukes even sooner.

U.S. officials reject these arguments.

Secretary of State John Kerry, in an interview with The Atlantic, noted that the agreement provides a “20-year televised insight” into Iranian centrifuge production and “25 years during which all uranium production — from mine to mill to yellowcake to gas to waste — is tracked and traced.” In addition, U.S. officials say, Iran’s longtime acceptance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which provides for permanent monitoring of the nuclear work of all signatories, has no sunset.

Obama on Wednesday underlined his administration’s strong support for Israeli security in an effort to bolster backing for the deal among Israelis and American Jews. Of Netanyahu’s objections to the deal, Obama said, “I do not doubt his sincerity, but I believe he is wrong.”

The president’s appeal to those concerned with Israel’s security may be reinforced by a petition, released Monday, signed by more than 60 top former Israeli security officials urging Netanyahu to accept the nuclear deal.

Underlying the debate is the difficulty of predicting the scenario in Iran and the rest of the Middle East 15 years from now, particularly in light of the region’s increasingly complex range of interlocking conflicts. While Netanyahu warns that Iran will bide its time and build a bomb when the agreement expires, proponents of the deal argue that it would strengthen more moderate voices in Iran and help reintegrate the country into the international community in a manner that strengthens incentives to seek peace and stability. And, they argue, if the U.S. walks away from the JCPOA, Iranian hard-liners could be boosted and Tehran will win the blame game.  

U.S. officials and their counterparts from the other world powers that negotiated the agreement also warn that further negotiations are unlikely if Washington reneges on the JCPOA and that the Europeans, Russians and Chinese will likely ignore sanctions maintained by the U.S., making them largely ineffective.

Since the deal was unanimously approved by the U.N. Security Council on July 20 and will carry the force of international law, it is hard to see how the U.S. could legally refuse to abide by it, regardless of what Congress does.

Still, it remains unlikely that the Obama administration will be able to prevent a congressional vote of disapproval, given that Republicans control both chambers and that the U.S. is already in another hyperconfrontational presidential election cycle.

The White House is clinging to hopes of persuading 41 of 45 Democrats in the Senate not to allow such a resolution to come to a vote by not allowing cloture — a parliamentary procedure to end debate — to be invoked, but that is a stretch.

“It would be awkward, to say the least, to not allow a vote,” said Joel Rubin, a former State Department top liaison to the House of Representatives and a former staffer for the late Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg. After the Senate unanimously approved legislation entitling Congress to a say on the Iran deal, “it’s hard to imagine on this consequential an issue that [even] those who support a deal would block a vote,” Rubin said.

The administration’s fallback plan is to persuade enough members of Congress not to override an Obama veto of a resolution of disapproval. Rubin is fairly confident of the numbers in that scenario. Although only 13 senators have publicly said they would support the JCPOA, the “working assumption,” he said, is that an additional 21 to 23 would back the president in a final confrontation. That would deprive opponents of the two-thirds majority required to supersede a veto.

Iranian officials have been briefed on these congressional dynamics and will likely try to downplay the impact of a no vote on their domestic politics. While Iran’s parliament has been briefed on the JCPOA, the final decision rests with the Supreme Leader, who has supported the negotiations, and with Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security, which has also backed the talks.

The deal has been structured in such a way that the Iranian parliament does not need to cast a key vote — on ratifying the additional protocol of the NPT — for eight years. Congress is not required to take action to lift sanctions for a similar period. For the U.S. and Iran, this is an agreement between executive branches that will have the force of international law.

So what could ultimately prevent implementation of an agreement of such magnitude and widespread world acceptance?

It’s August, a month when most of the world goes on vacation but crises — remember Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait — often erupt, especially in the Middle East. After years of laborious work to get to this point with Iran, no one is taking anything for granted.