Secretary of State John Kerry intensified efforts on Tuesday to beat back criticism of the Iran nuclear deal and convince lawmakers that rejecting it would give Tehran a fast track to a weapon and access to billions of dollars from collapsed sanctions.
The congresswoman anxious that the deal would permit Iran to retain the facilities for nuclear development, and to reanimate them once the agreement’s 10-year time frame expires.
“European and Asian partners would feel frustrated and misled” in the wake of a US rejection of the deal, Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and worldwide Studies, told the House Armed Services Committee this week.
Congress is expected to vote on the deal this fall, and a resolution of disapproval would prevent the president from lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran, killing the agreement.
In the deal, Iran agreed to transform its deeply buried Fordo Plant into a research centre for scientists and reconstruct its Arak reactors to end the ability for the devices to create weapons-grade plutonium.
Kerry, Lew and Moniz also testified in the Senate on Thursday, and Defense Secretary Ash Carter is among officials due to speak to lawmakers later this week.
“Iran has cheated on every agreement they have signed”, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Ed Royce said during the hearing.
Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew showed up to the hearing uninvited, apparently at the request of Carter.
It is designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons by imposing limits on its program, policed by the toughest inspection system ever designed by United Nations global Atomic Energy Agency.
Kerry insisted that the IAEA inspection system, boosted by intelligence from the United States and other countries, will discern any attempt by Iran to hide banned activities, triggering a “snap back” of global sanctions.
“Fifteen years from now Iran will be essentially off the hook” for compliance with the agreement, Engel said, a contention Kerry rejected.
The support of a senior Jewish congressman, who has served Michigan for 33 years, could be significant in building momentum for Democratic backing of the deal.
“The alternative to the deal we’ve reached isn’t a better deal… some kind of unicorn fantasy that contemplates Iran’s complete capitulation”, Kerry said.
“The red flags that would go off – the bells and whistles that would start chiming – as a result of any movement away from what they have to do” under the agreement, Kerry said.
“I spent quite a few years trying to get treaties through the US Senate and frankly it’s become physically impossible”, he said.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Tuesday, and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday that France’s President Francois Hollande had invited Rouhani to visit France in November.
Earnest said he was citing the support of all these countries “to rebut the claim that, well, if Congress is to move forward with killing this deal, that there is some other option available other than the military option”.
The hearing unfolded as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby, dispatched hundreds of its members to prod lawmakers to disapprove of the deal. Critics say sanctions elimination will provide Iran millions with which to finance terrorism targeting Israel.
