President Obama made another impassioned push for Congress to support the Iran nuclear deal Wednesday, saying it’s the toughest possible agreement and the alternative is war, a conclusion that even some loyal Democrats fund infuriating.
During an hour-long speech at American University in Washington, Obama insisted the deal would mean Iran would never get a nuclear weapon, that inspections are air-tight and that opposition is largely a product of “kneejerk partisanship,” despite the misgivings of many Democrats.
Obama also noted that the most radical political elements in Iran also oppose the deal, linking them to congressional critics.
“They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus,” said Obama.
The president spent considerable time arguing that U.S. and allied negotiators hammered out the best possible deal with Iran and that opposition from either side of the aisle is tantamount to preferring military conflict.
“That sounds awfully demagogic to me. The idea that the opponents of this agreement want war is ludicrous,” said former Clinton administration official Larry Haas, who is now a columnist and a senior fellow in U.S. foreign policy at the American Foreign Policy Council.
“The fact of the matter is the opponents of this agreement, of which I am one, fear that this agreement, because of how much it puts Iran in the driver’s seat, will make war more likely,” added Haas, who asks lawmakers of both parties to reject the tactics used by the administration to drum up congressional support for the agreement.
“This bifurcation between take this deal or go to war is ludicrous and no serious person should fall for that kind of demagoguery,” said Haas.
He says Congress, at the very least, should tell the Obama administration to demand a much tougher deal.
“Maybe the administration did a lousy job negotiating. If it were up to me, I think a member of Congress should say, ‘This isn’t good enough. Go back to the table. We have an interim agreement which has restrictions on Iran. You don’t know if you can do better unless you try harder,” said Haas.
Haas offered a handful of reasons he finds the deal completely unacceptable, starting with the framework for inspections.
“I think the inspection regime is insane. Iran has far too much time to hide the nuclear progress that it’s made at new, suspicious sites,” he said, contending the 24-day wait to get into newly suspected nuclear sites could be extended weeks or months if Iran protests loudly enough.
Haas also believes the sanctions relief is horribly misguided.
“I think the sanctions relief, somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 billion, even if a small portion of it goes to the nefarious activities that Iran does (like) terror sponsorship, the revolutionary guard destabilizing of governments in the region, including U.S. backed governments…Iran becomes even more dangerous than it already is,” he said.
Finally, Haas flatly rejects Obama’s assertion that the deal prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon indefinitely.
“This is a time-limited agreement. The restrictions expire, depending on which ones you’re talking about, at between 10 and 15 years,” said Haas, who implores members of Congress in both parties to ask themselves some hard questions before voting on this agreement.
“Look down the road. Do you want Iran to have the ability to develop nuclear weapons, either by cheating on this agreement or by letting the agreement expire, a regime that continues to chant, ‘Death to America?'” said Haas.
The path to blocking the deal is very difficult. Normally a treaty would require two-thirds majority support in the U.S. Senate. Because the Obama administration refuses to call this a treaty, Republicans responded with the Corker-Cardin plan which gives lawmakers the opportunity to review the agreement. However, given Obama’s promised veto of any rejection, both the House and Senate would two-thirds of their members to defy the president.
Lately, the already long adds of that seem even slimmer. In the past few days, Democrats like Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., along with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced their intention to support Obama.
Haas says that’s troubling but no reason for panic. He says most Democrats have not announced their intentions and many of them have expressed serious concerns. He also says several key House Democrats are already on the record as being opposed.
“Nita Lowey (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Ted Deutsch, an influential Florida Democrat, as well as Steve Israel (D-NY), who was head of the Democratic congressional re-election committee in the last cycle, so that’s not exactly chopped liver,” said Haas.
He also says several weeks remain for citizens to push their members of the House and Senate before the vote in September.
“I’m not surprised that the opponents of this deal are having a hard time getting to the number that they need, but I think we’re still very early in the fight,” he said.
