WarSclerotic

If for a brief moment it appeared that the Congress would go against U.S. President Barack Obama and vote in favor of imposing further sanctions on Iran, it is now clear that at least for now the White House has the upper hand.

The administration’s concerted efforts to prevent the Senate from approving more sanctions, which it feared were liable to derail the diplomatic track with Iran, gained further weight in Obama’s State of the Union address, during which he vowed to veto any such legislation were it to reach his desk.

Following the president’s unequivocal reiteration of his position on the matter, several democratic senators, who in the past said they would vote in favor of more sanctions, have publicly rescinded their support for the new legislation. Officials on Capitol Hill told Agence France-Presse that additional senators have also backtracked, despite not yet going public.

Until recently, according to various assessments, the legislation was supported by 59 senators, one less than is required to prevent a filibuster, and eight fewer than required to bypass a presidential veto. Currently it appears that support for the new legislation is dwindling.

“I am strongly supporting the bill, but I think a vote is unnecessary right now as long as there’s visible and meaningful progress” in the negotiations, said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal.

Fellow Democrat Sen. Chris Coons made a similar statement after Obama’s State of the Union address, saying, “Now is not the time for a vote on an Iran sanctions bill.”

Another Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, who had signed the law proposal, said he hopes that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will prevent a vote.

“I did not sign it with the intention that it would ever be voted upon or used upon while we’re negotiating,” Manchin told MSNBC television. “I signed it because I wanted to make sure the president had a hammer if he needed it and showed him how determined we were to do it and use it if we had to.”

It appears the White House’s campaign against the new legislation has been successful, despite a counter-campaign waged by pro-Israel groups in Washington, most notably by AIPAC.

“It looks like we’re kind of frozen in place,” said Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican co-sponsor of the legislation, told AFP.

Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who helped write the sanctions bill, pledged to fight on, saying, “The American people, Democrats and Republicans alike, overwhelmingly want Iran held accountable during any negotiations.”

He said the bill was an “insurance policy” against Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.

In the meantime, it seems Tehran is nonplussed by Washington. Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan was displeased to hear U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s comment that the military option was still on the table.

“Iran doesn’t welcome war and conflicts, but the country will give a serious response to any such action by warmongers,” Dehghansaid, adding that the U.S. was aware of Iran’s military power.

Dehghan went on to say that such statements were a political bluff, adding that “such thoughtless statements would harm the diplomatic efforts” and that Iran’s past wars have granted it with the “never-ending readiness to make the enemy regretful.”

Meanwhile, a group of U.N. inspectors visited a key uranium mine in southern Iran on Wednesday. Nuclear spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told the official IRNA news agency that the three-member team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — inspected the Gachin uranium mine, 50 kilometers west of the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

Kamalvandi said U.N. inspectors were given “managed access” to Gachin. The term refers to a level of scrutiny that provides IAEA inspectors with access to data while at the same time allowing the host country to protect some information.