Reuters yesterday reported on accelerating efforts in the Senate to pass legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran if progress in dismantling the country’s atomic program stalls over a coming six-month interim period, during which global powers are to negotiate with Tehran over what is widely believed to be Iran’s drive to develop nuclear weapons.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, and Republican Senator Mark Kirk are close to agreeing on legislation that would target Iran’s remaining oil exports, foreign exchange reserves and strategic industries, aides said on Monday. The legislation, which faces an uphill battle amid opposition from the White House, would seek to limit the ability of President Barack Obama’s administration to waive sanctions on Iran. It would also reimpose sanctions if Tehran reneges on an interim deal struck last month.

The news comes amid widening skepticism on the Hill that the U.S. has sufficient leverage to coerce Iran to meaningfully limit its nuclear program, in the aftermath of language in the Geneva deal that has undermined the international sanctions regime while allowing Tehran to continue progressing on its uranium and plutonium programs. On the House side, Republican Rep. Mike McCaul and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff both expressed skepticism on Sunday that the interim deal will be successful, with Schiff criticizing the administration for already having made critical concessions regarding Iranian enrichment. The Iranians, for their part, have not gone out of their way to signal that Tehran is willing to adopt a less bellicose posture. In recent days Iranian officials have announced that they are pushing ahead with next-generation enrichment technology and that they have installed laser systems improving the accuracy of their ballistic missiles by fully two orders of magnitude, from 200 meters to 2 meters.

“The inaccuracy of (our) ballistic long-range missiles in hitting targets is so minimal that we can pinpoint targets. The accuracy of surface-to-surface missiles is now two meters, while at some stage in the past it was 200 meters. We strive to reach zero inaccuracy,” Dehghan said. The remarks were also posted on his ministry’s website.

[Photo: PBS NewsHour / YouTube]