The White House last week released parts of the text detailing how the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) between the global P5+1 powers and Iran is to be implemented, after lawmakers and analysts spent the better part of a week expressing disbelief that the critical document would be withheld from public scrutiny and evaluation. Members of Congress were provided with the full nine-page text and a shorter summary was released publicly.
The details of the agreement are sure to come under intense scrutiny, with critics of the deal having already expressed concern that it could provide Tehran wiggle room to move ahead with parts of its nuclear weapons program. Those fears were amplified earlier this week when Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s nuclear negotiator, told a state media outlet that a secret side agreement had been made detailing some of the technical agreements. The Obama administration has disputed that characterization, and Carney said Iranian leaders were describing the deal “for their domestic audience.”
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) seized on the comments, saying they were “deeply concerned” by the reports in a statement.“We call on the Obama Administration to clarify this situation immediately and ensure that members of Congress are fully and promptly informed about its nuclear diplomacy with Iran,” the senators said. “If true, these reports only add greater urgency to the calls from an increasing number of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to pass new bipartisan sanctions legislation as soon as possible.”
At least one senior Senate staffer expressed skepticism that the White House’s disclosures would remove worries, driven in no small part by boasts from top Iranian officials, that details of the agreement favorable to the Islamic republic were being withheld. The Los Angeles Times, which quoted the staffer, noted that related doubts are driving a legislative battle over a Senate bill that would lock in future sanctions on Iran should comprehensive negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program fail. The White House has bitterly fought the legislation, first by asserting that it would drain bilateral good will necessary for negotiations – a suggestion that has grown increasingly tenuous in light of Iranian behavior – and more recently by criticizing specific conditions that the legislation would set on any comprehensive deal. Among those are the requirement that Iran dismantle its “illicit nuclear infrastructure.” Administration supporters have tried to characterize the condition as an unrealistic demand for a full halt on enrichment, a reading rejected by the bill’s writers, who point out that use of “illicit” is precisely designed to provide wiggle room on the issue.
“There’s no language that says a centrifuge is prohibited or allowed,” said David Albright, an expert on Iran’s nuclear program at the Institute for Science and International Security, who helped Republicans and Democrats draft some of the technical wording. The ambiguity, he said, reflected the fact that the lawmakers who sponsored the bill are “doing it in a bipartisan way, but they have disagreements on what the end state should look like.”
Mr. Albright said he believed that the Senate and White House could still negotiate a final version of the bill that would allay the administration’s concerns. But the White House seems uninterested, calculating perhaps that the bill’s sponsors were losing momentum in attracting enough Democrats to give the legislation a veto-proof majority.
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