The Senate is looking increasingly like it might ignore Barack Obama’s wishes and pass legislation threatening sanctions on Iran at the 11th hour.
traveling through the Senate today is gaining steam with at least 26 bipartisan co-sponsors. It allows the president and Secretary of State John Kerry to continue to scale back the country’s nuclear weapons program while threatening more sanctions if a deal doesn’t come through in the next year or so.
Obama and Kerry have repeatedly warned that even proposing such a bill would undermine sensitive negotiations with Iran.
“They know that if they fail, sanctions will be increased,” of Iran in a Dec. 10 hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We’ve said it a hundred times and you all have said it a hundred times and they know you’re yearning to go do it but you don’t need to do it.”
Some senators, like the powerful Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who heads the senate’s banking committee, to lay off plans for sanctions. But that didn’t stop Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., from drafting and circulating this bill.
“Current sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table and a credible threat of future sanctions will require Iran to cooperate and act in good faith at the negotiating table,” Menendez wrote in .
The Senate is officially in session through Friday and already has a heavy to-do list before lawmakers head home for the holiday, so it’s not clear if there will even be time for a vote on the bill.
But either way, its popularity sends a message to the president and Secretary Kerry that even Democrats in Congress don’t necessarily support their attempt to negotiate with Iran.
