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Congressional Democrats Concerned Over White House Inaction After Iranian Missile Tests

by TheTower.org Staff |

Democratic lawmakers are growing increasingly concerned that the Obama administration’s inaction in response to a number of Iranian provocations will set a bad precedent for the implementation of the nuclear deal, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The report quoted Democrats from both houses of Congress, including those who supported the nuclear with Iran. “The reality is with this deal, I’m on the administration’s side, but they need to be doing more” in response to Iran’s ballistic missile launches in October and November, Sen. Chris Coons (D – Del.) told the Post. “We have to have a menu of responses that we and our allies have agreed on and that we will take. Or the Iranians will pocket it and keep moving.” Coons expressed concern that the rise of ISIS and the European refugee crisis were distracting the administration from Iran’s behavior.

The release of an International Atomic Energy Agency report earlier this month, which revealed that Iran was engaged in a full-scale nuclear weapons program until 2003, prompted Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D – Ill.), another supporter of the nuclear deal, to point out that the Iranians “weren’t truthful about that….we need to be on top of what Iran is doing and do everything we can to have full compliance.”

Sen. Ben Cardin (D – Md.), who opposed the deal, said that if the United Nations is not willing or able to confront Iran over its violations, then the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action to enforce the deal. “We don’t expect that [a UN review process] will end up with an effective reaction — we don’t think that’s going to happen. So therefore, we think the only way forward is for U.S. action and European action.”

Cardin and Coons were two of eleven Democratic senators who wrote to Obama after the October missile launch asking him to “consider unilateral and multilateral responses” to confront Iran’s “clear non-compliance with [UN Security Council Resolution] 1929 and to deter future violations.”

Reps. Joe Kennedy (D – Mass.) and Ted Deutch (D – Fla.) wrote a letter to President Obama last week asking him to confront Iran over its ballistic missile launches. “These two missile launches are in clear violation of existing [UN Security Council] resolutions, and if the Security Council refuses to hold the Iranian government accountable, the United States must take action unilaterally,” Kennedy wrote.

[Photo: wmdt47news / YouTube ]

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