Can Congress stop Biden from rejoining Iran nuclear deal?

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s office struck a good tone this week on reaching a potential agreement with the US that would bring both countries back to compliance with the nuclear deal.

Although the US STATE DEPT. noted that negotiators have made some progress, a senior US official said that several distinctions between your two sides remain.

But regardless if President Joe Biden can clinch a deal with Iran that could have Tehran reinstate limits on its nuclear programme in trade for US sanctions relief, this agreement may need to survive a vote in Congress.

Republicans have made little secret of their intent to trigger a vote to block sanctions relief for Tehran in virtually any new deal by by using a 2015 law referred to as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

Mike McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led 21 other members of his party on paper a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken this month arguing that any agreement would bring about a statutory review period in Congress, thereby allowing Republicans to require a vote that could kill the offer using expedited procedures laid out in the 2015 law.

“It is impossible to resume mutual compliance with the [Iran deal] as written and considered by Congress six years back as if it were the continuation of the same agreement,” Mr McCaul and his allies wrote, listing Tehran’s ongoing breaches of the accord.

Since former president Donald Trump left the offer in 2018, Iran has gradually ratcheted up these breaches, enriching uranium at levels as high as 60 % purity, stockpiling enriched uranium at levels that are 16 times a lot more than permissible beneath the accord and installing advanced centrifuges at its nuclear sites.

“These violations make it impossible to simply ‘return’ to the [Iran deal], because Iran’s non-compliance has changed the offer itself,” wrote Mr McCaul. He continued to argue that Tehran’s research and enrichment made the accord “irretrievably broken”, meaning it “can no longer be complied with as drafted".

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service offered a slightly different assessment - albeit the one which could still bring about a vote in Congress.

A January Congressional Research Service report said that the opportunity to trigger a vote under the statutory review period “may depend, among other activities, on whether the agreement remains identical to the initial or is substantively amended".

“If america were to renew the conditions of the agreement without change, the president might reasonably conclude that, predicated on the plain meaning of the relevant statutory language, [the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act] would not require the transmittal of the written agreement again. Other questions may arise if the parties were to amend the [Iran deal] just before the US rejoining it.”

Throughout the six rounds of indirect talks in Vienna, the Iranians have demanded that the Biden administration lift the additional sanctions Mr Trump imposed along with the sweeping sectoral sanctions that former president Barack Obama relieved beneath the original deal.

“I think what’s supporting the talks in Vienna may be the sanctions on the supreme leader’s office,” Kenneth Katzman, an Iran consultant at the Congressional Research Service, told The National.

The Trump administration sanctioned Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his office, and president-elect Ebrahim Raisi and the outgoing foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in 2019.

If the Biden administration agrees to lift any of these sanctions as part of its deal to regenerate the nuclear accord, it might qualify as a substantive amendment, resulting in the congressional review period that could allow Republicans to force a vote on killing the agreement in Congress.

Even then, Republicans would face an uphill battle in a Democrat-held Congress - though they will make life politically uncomfortable for a few of Mr Biden’s high-profile Senate allies by putting them on record in regards to to Iran sanctions relief.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer voted against the initial deal in 2015, as did Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Centrist Joe Manchin of West Virginia has used the 50-50 split this season in the Senate to flex his muscles and Ben Cardin of Maryland also voted against the original deal.

All four senators enjoy close ties with the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbied hard against the original deal. The brand new Israeli government under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has continued to lobby the Biden administration against nuclear deal re-entry.

Despite his initial vote against the offer, Mr Cardin didn't shut the entranceway on lining up behind any potential new agreement that Mr Biden may reach.

“I’ve experienced touch with the administration,” Mr Cardin told The National. “They’re sharing information around. I think their objective on what they’re looking to get from Iran are kinds that I trust, so let me observe how they’ve worked it out.”

For his part, Mr Menendez joined Lindsey Graham of SC in a recent Washington Post op-ed arguing for the creation of a nuclear fuel bank for Iran as part of a broader deal that would also address Tehran’s ballistic missile programme and its own support for proxies throughout the Middle East.

“Such a deal could have a better potential for garnering wider, bipartisan support in the United States, which would also send a more powerful signal to Iran about its durability,” the senators wrote.

Asked about a potential vote in Congress, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told The National that “it’s a bit ahead of where we are".

“When we reach a spot, if we reach the main point where there’s a deal, we’re pleased to have the discussion about the legislative vote count.”

But even if Mr Biden faces a few Democratic defectors on a potential Iran deal vote, Republicans could have trouble mustering enough votes to kill any new agreement.

Democrats stay in firm control of the House of Representatives, and the procedural mechanism known as the filibuster - which has inhibited much of Mr Biden’s agenda so far - provides him with a further buffer in the Senate.

The filibuster would require 60 votes for just about any resolution to block sanctions relief, meaning Senate Republicans would have to convince 10 Democrats to vote to kill a fresh deal - an unlikely prospect.