Last year, as the Iran nuclear deal was completed and then pushed toward implementation, the Obama administration and the Democrats pledged that the agreement would be rigorously enforced. But as Washington’s limp reaction to Iran’s missile tests has shown, fulfillment of that promise is off to a rocky start. The unwillingness of the international community to take Iran’s actions seriously is more than harbinger of future trouble. Though Iran has been replaced by other issues at the top of the Congressional agenda, a new issue has arisen which will put the Democrats resolve to hold Iran accountable to the test.
As I noted last week, with Russia backing them up, Iran has outmaneuvered the administration at the United Nations on the issue of its violations. Other developments are just as discouraging. The International Atomic Energy Agency is also signaling that it will back down on reporting about possible military dimensions of the nuclear program and a veritable gold rush is going on in Tehran as European and even some American companies rush to do business in Iran. That means the stage is now set not only for the Islamist regime to get a lot richer, but to be able to proceed on both the nuclear and ballistic missile fronts without any real fear that the West will lift a finger about anything they do.
It is true that the administration slapped some minimal sanctions on individuals that helped procure materials used in the missile build up. But that was a slap on the wrist that impressed no one in Tehran. In response, Senate Republicans have now proposed ramped up sanctions about the missiles. The new effort would target sections of the Iranian economy connected to the missile work rather than just a few individuals. The bill would aim at punishing the infrastructure set up by the Iranians to facilitate their missile program rather than just the network involved in procurement that can be easily replaced to evade the previous sanctions.
Enacting these sanctions wouldn’t invalidate the nuclear deal but it would annoy the regime, something that the Obama administration seems unwilling to do. But perhaps the real test here is not so much of the Iranians as it is of the many Democratic members of the House and the Senate that pledged last year that the nuclear deal would not be the end of the effort to restrain Iran’s quest for regional autonomy or to destroy Israel.
One of the key talking points from the administration last year as it sought to ram the deal down the throats of an unwilling Congress and American people was that it was the Republican opponents of the pact that were politicizing the issue. But the truth was just the opposite. Prior to 2015, there had been an impressive bipartisan consensus in Congress on Iran that was for imposing the kind of tough sanctions on the regime that would bring a complete halt to its oil sales and other economic activity. The sanctions effort was led as much by Democrats such as New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez as it was by the GOP. But once the president and his allies swung into action and treated any effort to increase sanctions or to oppose the deal as a litmus test of loyalty to the administration that consensus evaporated.
The dustup over the invitation of former House Speaker John Boehner to Prime Minister Netanyahu to address Congress was foolish precisely because it allowed the White House to brand the speech as an affront to the president and a plot by the Israelis to help the GOP fight the administration. Most of all it served to distract the country from what the Democrats were doing on the issue as their caucus was split on Iran. Yet in the ensuing months as formerly tough on Iran Democrats were peeled away by the president, they continued to pledge that they would never let the Iranians get away with violations.
Those promises were largely empty as they helped the president prevent Congress from voting to approve the deal. But now that the dust has settled on that battle, the missile tests provide an opportunity for Democrats to make good on their promises.
Earlier today, Hillary Clinton sounded a slightly more bellicose note toward Iran in her AIPAC address that seemed to be a clear departure from the détente-oriented policies of Obama and her successor John Kerry. That ought to give Senate Democrats an excuse to join in with the Republicans and pass a sanctions bill with some real teeth.
But due to politics, that may not happen. The principle co-sponsors of the sanctions bill are Kelly Ayotte and Mark Kirk, two GOP senators that are up for re-election in competitive races. No one in the Democratic minority that would like to be a majority wants to give either one of them or any Republican any credit on the issue. The Democrats will not only fail to support the legislation, the odds are, they’d filibuster it just like they did the bill to spike the Iran deal.
But if they don’t like Ayotte and Kirk’s bill, they should propose their own that would be just as tough. In the past, Menendez took the lead in making this a bipartisan issue, but he’s been effectively neutered since corruption charges were filed against him last year. Perhaps then this is the chance for Senator Chuck Schumer, the man who hopes to be majority leader next year, to start acting like he really is the shomer — Hebrew for guardian — of Israel in the Senate. Let him do as Menendez would have done and begin the process of rebuilding a coalition on Iran that stretches across the political aisle.
If he fails to do so, then we will know, as many suspected, that the Democrats’ promise to be tough on Iran even after the deal was completed, was just talk.
