Preemptive Strike

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Two weeks before a crucial diplomatic deadline, newly victorious Republicans in Congress are plotting to derail one of Barack Obama’s few remaining chances for a second-term policy legacy: a nuclear deal with Iran.

The Obama administration’s interim agreement with Tehran expires on Nov. 24. But Senate Republicans don’t plan to wait until they take power in January to rattle the nuclear talks. On Thursday, a day after returning to Washington, they will seek a vote on legislation requiring that Congress approve any deal.

Democrats, who still control the Senate, are likely to quash the move. But it’s an early illustration of Republican plans to confound the president’s nuclear diplomacy, which the GOP sees as dangerously weak toward Tehran’s anti-American Islamic regime.

“The Hill has a lot of power to make things miserable for the president,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a critic of the nuclear talks who consults closely with Congress on Iran legislation.
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If the interim nuclear deal is extended with few or no new concessions by Iran, sources say Republicans are likely to take up legislation similar to a Senate bill sponsored last year by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez and Sen. Mark Kirk, the one that drew 60 co-sponsors. That bill threatened new sanctions should Iran violate the interim agreement, or if it abandons the negotiations.

“If it’s just a simple extension with a couple of bells and whistles, like they did [in July], I expect Congress to move forward with a new bill similar to Menendez-Kirk,” said Dubowitz. “For the administration to actually get an extension without that they would have to come back with a partial deal — but a meaningful partial deal.”
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