For months Obama resisted attempts led by Republicans and some
Democrats to open an agreement with Iran to congressional approval.
On Tuesday he backed down in the face of mounting bipartisan support
for the bill, which gives Congress at least 30 days to review a
final deal during which time Obama would be unable to waive or
suspend many U.S. sanctions.
Negotiators for Iran and six major powers are trying to ensure Iran
does not acquire an atomic bomb by securing an agreement by June 30
under which Iran would curb its nuclear program in exchange for
relief from international sanctions.
"If I were an Iranian negotiator, I would walk into that room and
say 'you told us all along you were going to stop legislation,'"
said Richard Nephew, a former U.S. negotiator with Iran now at
Columbia University.
"'How can you guarantee us that we’re not going to have this problem
when we bring the deal forth?'"
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Apr/16/images/ads/current/Brandt_sda_101514.png) "Will it be fatal? No," he added. "It’s going to make things a lot
harder, a lot more complicated, a lot more difficult for the (U.S.)
negotiating side."
While it is largely a U.S.-Iranian affair, the talks also include
Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia. The European Union is
also a key player in the process, which resulted in a preliminary
deal on April 2 after marathon talks.
Since then, sharp differences in interpretation over the terms have
emerged, with Iran saying sanctions must be lifted immediately after
a deal is reached and Washington insisting the sanctions will be
phased out over a longer period.
SQUARING THE CIRCLE
However, there are ways to square that circle.
It will take Iran some time to take steps such as shutting down and
disconnecting some of its centrifuges, which can produce fissile
material for an atomic bomb.
Any eventual nuclear agreement could be written with its
implementation scheduled to begin, say, 60 days later, giving Iran
time to prepare its nuclear actions and allowing the U.S.
congressional process to play out.
If Congress were ultimately to reject any Iran deal in a "joint
resolution of disapproval", Obama still has the ability to veto it.
He would only need to secure 34 votes in the Senate to sustain his
veto and prevail, a test analysts said he was likely to meet.
Senators from Obama's Democratic Party would likely be less willing
to undo what would be a historic foreign policy achievement than
they were to back this week's move for congressional oversight.
"My guess is that the administration will have a strong chance of
putting together a block of at least 34 senators," said Robert
Einhorn, another former U.S. negotiator with Iran who is now at the
Brookings Institution think tank.
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Last-minute concessions by Republicans in the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee cut the review period to 30 days from the
original 60 days and removed a requirement that Obama certify that
Iran is not supporting terrorism against the United States.
The bill requires the administration to send Congress any accord
within five days of its conclusion. It bars the White House from
easing sanctions imposed by Congress for at least 30 days after
that, but Obama could unilaterally ease sanctions if Congress takes
no action.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has led the U.S. team, said
he was confident of the administration's ability to negotiate a
deal, and Germany and the European Union voiced optimism the
congressional move would not prevent an agreement.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the bill would "codify the
legitimate congressional oversight of the deal in a way that gives
our negotiators the time and space they need to finalize this
agreement by the end of June."
Einhorn said the administration aims to persuade Iran that while
there is deep skepticism within Congress about a nuclear deal, the
White House has the constitutional tools "to defeat any effort by
the Congress to undermine the agreement."
"This vote will provide some talking points for Iranian hard-liners.
They will say 'look what happened. The Obama administration got
rolled. The administration could get rolled at the end of June'," he
said.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Apr/16/images/ads/current/almh_lda_farm_2015.png)
"But I think that sophisticated Iranians will understand the
(political) realities and wouldn’t draw the conclusion that the
administration can't deliver," he added.
(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations;
Editing by David Storey and Stuart Grudgings)
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