President Obama’s willingness to extend by seven months the talks on ending Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions thrusts any final decision on the matter into a new year when Republicans will have control of both chambers of Congress and be able to press their own efforts at increasing sanctions or other pressures on Tehran.
For most of the last two years, as the talks have dragged on, Mr. Obama enjoyed the benefit of a Democratic Senate, under the control of Harry Reid, to bat away efforts to impose new sanctions on Iran. That buffer will now be gone with the extension announced Monday, in which the U.S. will also reward Tehran with nearly $5 billion in sanctions relief.
GOP leaders immediately signaled their desire to increase pressure on Tehran and expressed their fears that the U.S. is simply engaged in a delaying game with an adversary unwilling to make the necessary concessions to reach a global deal.
“This seven-month extension should be used to tighten the economic vice on Tehran — already suffering from falling energy prices — to force the concessions that Iran has been resisting,” House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Edward R. Royce, California Republican, declared.
Added Sen. Bob Corker, who in January becomes the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: “Since the beginning, I have been concerned about a series of rolling extensions becoming the norm and reducing our leverage.”
Critics of giving Iran more time have collected fresh ammunition recently to make their case. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani went on national television Monday to explain the delay but declared defiantly “the centrifuges are spinning and will never stop.”
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Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency suggested earlier this month that Iran has been failing to live up to the terms of an earlier extension in the nuclear talks.
Facing its own distrust of the talks, neighboring Israel said Monday the delay was better than a hasty deal filled with concessions.
“No deal is better than a bad deal,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the BBC hours before the official announcement of the extension in the talks. “The right deal that is needed is to dismantle Iran’s capacity to make atomic bombs and only then dismantle the sanctions.”
“Since that’s not in the offing, this result is better — a lot better,” he said.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry sought to repel any notion that Iran hasn’t lived up to its commitments during the interim, defending the new sanctions relief the U.S. put on the table. But he pointedly acknowledged a tough road ahead.
“These talks are not going to get easier just because we extend them,” Mr. Kerry said, admitting it was possible no deal will be reached in the end. “They are tough, they’ve been tough, and they are going to stay tough.”
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On Capitol Hill, Republicans worried aloud that Iran was engaged in delay tactics.
“Unfortunately, time is on Tehran’s side as it continues its research and development,” Mr. Royce said. “One thing that could change Tehran’s resistance to agreeing to a meaningful and effective agreement to keep it from developing a nuclear weapon is more economic pressure,” Mr. Royce said.
Sen. Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican, went further: “Every day that we continue these unsuccessful talks and repeated extensions with Iran is another day given to Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.”
What remains to be seen is whether a Republican-controlled Senate can force the White House to ramp up sanctions on Iran and truly reshape the nuclear talks.
Senior Senate aides, speaking anonymously with The Times due to sensitivity over the matter, said earlier this month that while legislation pushing for more sanctions will almost certainly pass both houses of Congress early in the new year, even a Republican majority Congress is unlikely to come up with the 67 votes required to override a presidential veto.
Mr. Kerry defended the approach being taken by the administration. “Iran has significantly reduced its nuclear enrichment activities over the past year,” he said Monday, adding that noteworthy progress has been made in slowing the Islamic republic’s pursuit of highly enriched uranium to achieve so-called “breakout” capacity for a weapon.
“We would be fools to walk away from a situation where the breakout time has already been expanded rather than narrowed,” the secretary of state said at a late-night press conference in Vienna as a self-imposed deadline for a more expansive nuclear accord passed on Monday.
His remarks came after a heated and highly classified round of talks in the Swiss city between Iranian officials and negotiators from the P5+1 group, the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members: the U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain, plus Germany.
That the talks have occurred at all over the past year has been historic in that they represent an unprecedented easing of tension between the West and Tehran over the Islamic republic’s nuclear activities.
The past decade saw Western powers level a regimen of crippling economic sanctions on Iran after years of suspicion that Tehran was clandestinely pursuing nuclear weapons in violation of U.N. regulations. Iranian officials have long denied the charge, claiming their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Mr. Kerry and others from the P5+1 group have said the goal of the talks was to reach a permanent accord that would see Iran agree to open its nuclear facilities to inspections by the IAEA to prove that it is limiting its nuclear enrichment activities. In exchange, the West would engage in a full-scale pullback of economic sanctions, which, combined with a U.S.-led global embargo on Iranian crude oil, have crippled Iran’s economy.
But the accord has proven elusive, reportedly because Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has refused to agree to the level of cuts in uranium enrichment activity being demanded by the U.S. and other P5+1 members, specifically France, Germany and Britain.
Joint Plan of Action
As the P5+1 got underway last year, the Obama administration announced that it was providing some $5.7 billion in sanctions relief to Iran as part of an initial Joint Plan of Action agreement to get the negotiations moving with Tehran.
Under the JPOA, Iranian officials reportedly agreed to dilute or convert their entire stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium — the material that could be used to quickly develop a nuclear weapon. But they were allowed to proceed with uranium enrichment to a level of 5 percent on condition that they opened the activity to full inspection by the IAEA.
Debate has surged during recent weeks over the extent to which Iran has actually stood by the agreement.
In early November IAEA officials issued a classified report asserting that Iranian officials were not being completely transparent about their nuclear program.
“Iran has not provided any explanations that enable the agency to clarify” whether Tehran’s nuclear activities may be aimed at weapon-making, stated the confidential document, which was obtained and first reported on by The Associated Press.
But Mr. Kerry argued the contrary on Monday, asserting that “Iran has lived up to the agreement.”
“IAEA inspectors have daily access to Iran’s enrichment facilities and a far deeper understanding of Iran’s program,” he said. “They’ve been able to verify that Iran is indeed living up to its JPOA commitments.”
While Mr. Kerry said disagreements still stand in the way of a permanent nuclear accord, he argued that extending the talks is justified because the JPOA is working.
While the secretary of state refused to reveal a specific dollar amount for the sanctions relief, he said it will occur under the same terms agreed to in the existing JPOA, which allows Tehran to access roughly $700 million per month in Iranian government funds currently frozen in foreign bank accounts.
Under those terms, the new extension will see the Islamic republic collect roughly $4.9 billion in new sanctions relief over the coming seven months.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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