The Obama Nuclear Charade Deal: White House Issues Saturday Night Iran Deal Warning To Senate

14 Mar, 2015 by Samuel Gonzalez

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From The Last Tradition

President Obama is laying the groundwork for escaping blame for Iran developing nuclear weapons by laying it off on Senate Republicans. This whole negotiation has been a bogus exercise from the start because Obama doesn’t really see Iran having nukes as a problem. He thinks it’s only fair for Iran to have them and it’s not the place for the U.S. to say otherwise.

But, he can’t say it publicly so instead he enters into bogus talks that he already knows will allow them to have Nukes while pretending he’s trying to stop them.

Huffington Post reports in an effort to reassert control over the domestic political debate surrounding sensitive negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, the White House penned a letter Saturday night warning senators to hold back on legislation that would detract from the president’s ability to affect and approve a final agreement with Iran.

The letter, written by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), reiterates a veto threat of the bill, while insisting that Congress will have a say in reviewing and affecting the ultimate outcome. But in far more detailed and foreboding terms than normal, McDonough lays out the administration’s concerns should Corker’s Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 end up becoming law.

The bill, he writes, would “likely have a profoundly negative impact on the ongoing negotiations — emboldening Iranian hard-liners, inviting a counter-productive response from the Iranian majiles; differentiating the U.S. position from our allies in negotiations; and once again calling into question our ability to negotiate this deal.”

“Put simply,” adds McDonough, “it would potentially make it impossible to secure international cooperation for additional sanctions, while putting at risk the existing multilateral sanctions regime.”

READ THE FULL LETTER HERE

Coming just days before the March 24 deadline for a political framework for the final nuclear agreement, the Saturday night letter — three pages, single spaced, in length — is the latest indication of rising tensions between the White House and the Hill. At times assertive and, at others, combative, the letter warns Corker that his bill, which would give Congress the right to vote up or down on the final nuclear agreement, would cripple U.S. negotiators and lead Iran and international negotiating partners to question the U.S.’ ability to follow through on its end of the bargain.

It comes after months of Congress trying to insert itself into the negotiations between Iran, the U.S. and five partner countries. While the White House maintains it is nearing an agreement that will ensure Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, lawmakers have insisted that President Barack Obama is prepared to sign a “bad deal” that will leave too much of Iran’s nuclear facilities intact, allowing it to covertly develop a nuclear weapon. These concerns have been echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, against the wishes of the White House, delivered a contentious speech on the House floor, warning that the current deal will “all but guarantee” Iran nuclear weapons.

Matters came to a climactic point this past week, when Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) drafted a letter, signed by 46 other Republican senators, to Iranian leadership. The letter warned that any agreement could easily be reworked by Congress, or even overturned by a future president. The White House and Democratic lawmakers slammed the letter as a blatant attempt to undermine negotiations and the credibility of the White House.

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