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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Published on CNS News http://www.cnsnews.com
Menendez Is 2nd Dem to Oppose Iran Deal: ‘Hope…Is Not a National Security
Strategy’
(CNSNews.com) – Twelve days after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) became the
lone Democratic senator to declare opposition to the administration’s Iran
nuclear agreement, a second senior Democrat has joined him, with Sen. Robert
Menendez (D-N.J.) announcing Tuesday that he too will vote against the deal.
In a speech [1] laying out in detail his reasons for opposing the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Menendez said ultimately the agreement
between the P5+1 – the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany –
and Tehran was “based on hope.”
“Hope that when the [10-15 year] nuclear sunset clause expires Iran will
have succumbed to the benefits of commerce and global integration; hope that
the hardliners will have lost their power and the revolution will end its
hegemonic goals; hope that the regime will allow the Iranian people to
decide their fate.”
“And hope is part of human nature,” he said, “but … unfortunately it is
not a national security strategy.”
Menendez said he will support a resolution to disapprove the agreement –
which is due to come to a vote by mid-September – and if President Obama
vetoes the measure, he will vote to override the veto.
“My devotion to principle may once again lead me to an unpopular course,
but if Iran is to acquire a nuclear bomb, it will not have my name on it.”
Schumer’s announcement of the same stance earlier this month did not lead
to the uptick in declared opposition among Democrats that some predicted.
Currently 23 have voiced public support for the JCPOA, two their opposition,
and 21 are undeclared. At least 13 Senate Democrats, along with 44 in the
House, will have to join their Republican colleagues to override the veto. (
An updated whip list appears below.)
Menendez began his speech in New Jersey by distancing himself both from
Obama’s portrayal of JCPOA opponents and from a position of reflexive
opposition to the president.
“Unlike President Obama’s characterization of those who have raised
serious questions about the agreement, or who have opposed it, I did not
vote for the war in Iraq,’ he said, pointing out that while he had opposed
the war Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry both
supported it.
(“Some of the same politicians and pundits that are so quick to reject the
possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program are the same
folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq,” Obama said in a July 21
speech [2]. State Department spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday declined to
comment on Menendez’ point that he had opposed the war while Kerry had
supported it.)
“I also don’t come to this question as someone, unlike many of my
Republican colleagues, who reflexively oppose everything the president
proposes,” Menendez added, noting that he has been a “reliable supporter”
of Obama in backing key policies.
“But my support is not – and has not been – driven by party loyalty, but
rather by principled agreement,” he said. “And when I have disagreed it is
also based on principled disagreement.”
“This is one of the most serious national security, nuclear
nonproliferation, arms control issues of our time,” Menendez said. “It is
not an issue of supporting or opposing the president. This issue is much
greater, and graver than that.”
The New Jersey Democrat, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, pushed back against the administration’s talking-point about war
being the only alternative [3] to the JCPOA.
“The president and Secretary Kerry have repeatedly said that the choice is
between this agreement or war,” he said. “I reject that proposition, as
have most witnesses – including past and present administration members
involved in the Iran nuclear issue – who have testified before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee and who support the deal but reject the binary
choice between the agreement or war.”
“If the P5+1 had not achieved an agreement, would we be at war with Iran?”
he asked. “I don’t believe that.”
“If there is a fear of war in the region,” Menendez said earlier in the
speech, “it is fueled by Iran and its proxies and exacerbated by an
agreement that allows Iran to possess an industrial-sized nuclear program,
and enough money in sanctions relief to continue to fund its hegemonic
intentions throughout the region.”
Recommendations for a ‘better deal’
In response to the administration’s repeated assertion that JCPOA opponents
have not offered any realistic alternative to the negotiated deal, Menendez
said the U.S. can still get “a better deal.”
Congress could disapprove the JCPOA, he said, and authorize the
administration to continue negotiations under the original Joint Plan of
Action – the interim understanding which granted Iran limited sanctions
relief in exchange for limited curbs on its nuclear program.
Congress could then set out “specific parameters” for the continued
negotiations, including:
---Insistence that Iran immediately ratifies the “additional protocol” of
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, “to ensure that we have a permanent
international arrangement with Iran for access to suspect sites.”
---A ban on centrifuge R&D for the duration of the agreement,
---Closure of the covertly-built underground enrichment facility at Fordow,
whose sole purpose, Menendez said, “was to harden Iran’s nuclear program
to a military attack. We need to close the facility and foreclose Iran’s
future ability to use this facility. If Iran has nothing to hide they
shouldn’t need to put it under a mountain.”
(The JCPOA allows the Iranian to keep Fordow, albeit with activities there
heavily proscribed. In 2013, Obama said [4] that if Iran’s nuclear program
was peaceful as it claimed, it had no need for Fordow.)
---Full resolution of the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s
program, rather than an arrangement “set up to whitewash this issue.”
(JCPOA critics in Congress are unhappy about the secrecy [5] governing the
International Atomic Energy Agency’s dealings with Iran about the so-called
PMD issues, including suspicions that Iran carried out nuclear-related
tests at Parchin, a military site it has refused to open to inspectors.
“The answer as to why we cannot see those documents, is because they have a
confidentiality agreement between the IAEA and Iran, which they say is
customary [6],” said Menendez. “But this issue is anything but customary.
”)
---Extension of the duration of the agreement to “at least 20 years.”
---Agreement now on penalties to be collectively imposed by the P5+1 for
Iranian violations.
Beyond those parameters, Menendez called for further steps, including:
---Congress must extend the authorization of the Iran Sanctions Act, which
expires next year, “to ensure that we have an effective snapback option.”
(Administration officials have said it is premature to discuss
reauthorizing the ISA.)
---Obama should affirm, and Congress endorse, a policy declaration that the
U.S. “will use all means necessary to prevent Iran from producing enough
enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, as well as building or buying one, both
during and after any agreement.”
Democratic senators publicly supporting the Iran deal as of August 18 (23):
Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sherrod Brown (D-
Ohio), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Al Franken (D-
Minn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mazie Hirono
(D-Hawaii), Timothy Kaine (D-Va.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-
Minn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.),
Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Jeanne
Shaheen (D-N.H.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Publicly opposed (2):
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)
Undeclared (21):
Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D
-N.J.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Thomas Carper (D-Dela.
), Robert Casey (D-Pa.), Christopher Coons (D-Dela.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.),
Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.),
Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.),
Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Debbie
Stabenow (D-Mich.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
Source URL: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/menendez-2nd-dem-oppose-iran-deal-hope-not-national-security |
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