Slowdown or showdown en route to new Iran sanctions bill
Slowdown or showdown en route to new Iran sanctions bill | The Times of Israel.
Obama administration steps up top-level push to delay additional sanctions legislation set to go through Senate
Will Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) support a showdown or a slowdown on the Iran sanctions bill? (photo credit: CC BY-Glyn Lowe Photoworks, flickr)
WASHINGTON — Concerned about support in the Senate for the administration’s plan to delay a new Iran sanctions bill, the Obama administration was set to dispatch top-tier advocates to press the president’s cause on Capitol Hill starting Wednesday.
The push is expected to culminate in a closed-door meeting of the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday during which Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew are slated to make the administration’s case to delay any additional sanctions legislation.
The Washington-based website Politico detailed a busy schedule of meetings on Iran over the next two days. Kerry was scheduled to hold a breakfast meeting Wednesday with Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN), while other administration officials were set to be dispatched to Capitol Hill to brief other committee leaders and ranking members.
The Senate Banking Committee is set to take up draft legislation that would further toughen up sanctions against Iran, despite Tehran’s return to the negotiating table. Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) told AIPAC that the sanctions legislation he was considering would cut Iran’s oil exports further to a mere 500,000 barrels per day.
Such sanctions would reduce by half the current amount of oil exported from Iran, but would be more moderate than the parallel bill approved in July by the House of Representatives, which would almost completely eliminate such exports. Should such a bill pass through the Senate, it would then face a reconciliation process with the House legislation.
Menendez has taken a hard line in the past on Iran sanctions, and, according to a copy of his speech to AIPAC obtained by Reuters, he believed at the beginning of this week that “this is not the time to loosen sanctions.” Now, the powerful senator is reportedly waiting until this week’s briefings to deliver a verdict as to whether he will comply with the administration’s call to delay action on the Senate legislation.
The administration is looking for a delay on the legislation — most likely at least until it knows the outcome of the upcoming P5+1 talks with Iran scheduled for November 8 in Geneva.
“While we understand that Congress may consider new sanctions, we think this is a time for a pause, as we asked for in the past, to see if negotiations can gain traction,” State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said late last week.
The administration’s strong push to delay sanctions legislation began Thursday, when Senate Democratic leaders were asked, during a meeting at the White House, to delay the bill’s progress in the Senate. The Senate Banking Committee had been expected to introduce the sanctions bill on the following Tuesday.
The bill was one of the topics on the table Tuesday evening as well, when the White House called in a number of American Jewish organizations’ leaders who have advocated for a tougher approach on Iran.
Among the organizations that participated was AIPAC, which has taken the lead in pushing for the new sanctions legislation in the House and the Senate. AIPAC officials would not comment as to whether they were explicitly asked during the hastily-summoned meeting to ease up the pressure on senators to approve the legislation, but left-leaning Jewish groups who are less sanctions-enthusiastic said that they had not been asked to attend the meeting.
Leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and AIPAC met with National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisors Antony Blinken and Ben Rhodes and Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, but none of the organizations emerged from the meeting publicly voicing promises to stop pushing for the new legislation.
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WarSclerotic 
October 30, 2013 at 3:39 PM
The only thing that might work would be a full oil embargo – blocking Iran’s ships from exporting anything.
Simply passing yet another bill through Congress won’t do s*** because Iran has many allies that will still buy their oil.
October 30, 2013 at 3:42 PM
It may interest everyone that Forbes has dropped Obama from top of the most powerful list.
The president is now longer regarded as the most powerful in the word.
Putin is now at number 1
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2013/10/30/the-worlds-most-powerful-people-2013/
October 30, 2013 at 5:06 PM
In fact, Bill O’Reilly said yesterday that Obama Administration is, practically, finished, because of the colossal fiasco of the Obamacare. As I write those lines, the hearings in the House relating the same subject are developing in full gear, Sebelius been inquired. No matter where your eyes will take you around and into the Obama Administration, the incompetence is ruling high and strong. And that is true from the ”president”, down to the last man there. All the important nominations, all the important public figure are ridicule and incompetent men or women, not fitted for the jobs they were appointed. And there is an explanation to this: The ”consigliere” – Jarrett Valerie – didn’t want anyone who is intellectually powerful, for her protégé – who is Obama – not to be challenged or exposed. Anyone who ever crossed her in the WH just had his legs out of the House. Literally. All this situation is characterizing the totalitarian regimes, where not the quality was number one but the incompetence was ruling, for the ”leader” not to be disturbed and exposed by smart, quality people.
So we came to this embarrassing situation, which is the worst nightmare of this president. Gone are the happy energetic days of the second term elections; the actual situation is, in fact, a hell on earth for the Jarrett-Obama tandem. Only a miracle might save them from the free falling they are into right now. And that ”miracle” cannot be provided from the inside of the US, because that is exactly the place that the actual scourge is emerging from. So, one might wander, what that miracle could be?
Even ”Uncle” Putin cannot save the day for the US ”president”, and Putin is, as we already heard – by the courtesy of Defence – the number one man on earth right now. Is there any chance that, deep in his heart, Obama is praying that Bibi should do something bold? We are not so sure on this point, because attacking the birth country of Jarret is not an option for the ”Iron Lady” in the WH.
So we cannot predict how ”friendly” Obama will react regarding Israel, if the IDF will trigger the long expected Iran Operation, but one thing is sure: that will save him from this impossible actual situation, letting him to ”show” leadership and taking decisions capabilities. It might be that Obama needs an Israeli action in Iran right now more than Bibi is ready to deliver.
October 30, 2013 at 5:11 PM
I don’t understand why you are so down on Netanyahu. I suppose it’s his putting off the action for so long.
I hope you are so wrong that you will smile ear to ear when proven so….
October 30, 2013 at 6:00 PM
No problem, Joseph. I really want to smile one day because of the reason you pointed out. But Bibi, up to this very moment, didn’t take any advantage from any bad positions Obama was in, for long periods of time. He didn’t attack when he had the Congress openly behind him ( behind Bibi ) after that great success in the States before an year and something, he didn’t attack before the elections and he didn’t attack after the elections. This is a new lowest point for the administration. I feel Bibi very hesitating right now and I even was not supposed to say that. If Bibi will miss this opportunity, too, this will be his last mistake on this issue, because the ”Iron Lady” in the WH is preparing the Iranian American paper as we speak, hoping that an Iranian delegation in Washington will save her president man from this deep you know what. After that paper will be signed, no Israeli military operation in Iran will be possible, anymore. So we have an ”asteroid” here who is approaching Earth and we must explode it before it crosses a certain line, after which, even been exploded, he will caused the capital damage[”Armageddon” movie]. Bruce Willis and his fabulous team are urgently needed right now.
October 30, 2013 at 6:19 PM
Bibi knows about Iran’s eschatology enough to conclude that if he does not act in time we will be annihilated and he is not suicidal. Neither is Bogie. I guess it might be a question of weeks.
October 30, 2013 at 6:52 PM
“After that paper will be signed, no Israeli military operation in Iran will be possible, anymore.”
Luis, you and I have bummed heads on this site more than once. But on this point we agree. The time for action is nearly up. What then if the clock strikes midnight and no attack occurs? What then for Israel?
October 30, 2013 at 7:13 PM
If the clock will strike midnight and Israel wont attack, then the ugly witch will transform Israel into a frog. In that case, we’ll have to wait for the princess to give us a kiss.
October 30, 2013 at 8:21 PM
“In that case, we’ll have to wait for the princess to give us a kiss.” Good luck with that….
October 30, 2013 at 8:46 PM
Its only a story, John. You are too Pavlovian lately. Relax man. Let it go.
October 30, 2013 at 9:24 PM
I agree, the crystal ball if there is no attack is foggy at best!
October 30, 2013 at 7:29 PM
The debka article on Egypt wanting to buy the SS-25 Topol says a lot to me, if its true.
The SS-25 carries Russia’s mobile nuclear strike capability.
It is a strategic weapon designed to carry a chemical, biological or nuclear warhead. A conventional warhead would be useless as its not accurate enough to be used surgically.
I am seeing Egypt preparing for a new middle east, preparing for the possibility of a nuclear Iran, and these SS-25’s will maybe one day carry Egypt’s own nuclear deterrent.