The Land of Flickering Lights

by Michael Bennet

  President Trump has now withdrawn from the deal, and in so doing he has challenged basic assumptions about how America should lead in the world. Moreover, he withdrew from the deal in spite of ample evidence of its success, knowing he would have support from a significant segment of the Senate, one that had sought to undercut President Obama’s efforts on Iran in a way that was at once unprecedented, insulting, and shortsighted. It is worth stepping back to understand how we got to this dangerous moment—to make sense of where we are and where we need to go.

  II. Path to a Deal

  In 2003, President George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq based on the faulty assessment—perhaps a deliberately faulty assessment—that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction. Vice President Dick Cheney declared that “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, against us.” He predicted that US troops would be “greeted as liberators.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld maintained that the war would be inexpensive and would largely pay for itself. “Iraqi democracy will succeed,” President Bush said. “And that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Tehran, that freedom can be the future of every nation.” The administration’s optimism was one reason (among others) for the United States Senate’s 77–23 vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. That authorization of force remains in place today, a decade and a half later.

  On the day the Senate voted, Iraq was a majority Shia Arab state led by a Sunni strongman, Saddam Hussein. Its neighbor to the west was Syria, a majority Sunni Arab state led by an Alawite strongman. Its neighbor to the east was Iran, a Persian Shia state that exerted substantial influence in Syria. Just fifteen years earlier, Iraq and Iran had ended an inconclusive eight-year war that had resulted in more than a million casualties. By the time of the US invasion, Iraq and Iran had established an uneasy balance of power, one that held in check competing regional ambitions by a number of other nations. After the US invasion of Iraq, that balance became only a memory and new forces threatened to blow the region apart.

  Iran was a clear beneficiary of the Iraq War. No longer constrained by Iraq’s deposed Sunni dictator, over the next decade Iran exploited the chaos the war left in its wake and extended its lethal influence throughout the Middle East. It funded, equipped, and trained militias to fight coalition forces in the Iraqi theater as well as proxies throughout the region, from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria to Houthi rebels in Yemen. It exerted enormous influence—if not control—over many prominent Iraqi Shia political leaders. As it sowed violence and chaos, Iran continued to develop a nuclear program that had been of concern to the international community for many years.

  The Bush administration was alarmed by Iran’s progress, and in 2008 the United States, along with the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia, and Germany (a group that came to be called the P5+1),1 as well as the European Union, proposed formal negotiations with Iran. As a precondition of negotiations and also to forestall additional sanctions, Iran would have to agree to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. Iran refused. “If the package includes suspension, it is not debatable at all,” a government spokesperson said. Iran viewed its pursuit of a nuclear program as the prerogative of a sovereign country. Its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad explained, “As long as this government is in power, it will not retreat one iota on the undeniable rights of the Iranian nation.”

  By late 2009, less than a year into President Obama’s administration, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had determined that Iran possessed roughly five thousand centrifuges—devices used to “enrich,” or manufacture, weapons-quality uranium. This represented a substantial escalation in capability. In addition, the country was stockpiling enriched uranium, violating UN Security Council resolutions. By the beginning of President Obama’s second term, the IAEA reported that Iran had increased the number of centrifuges to thirteen thousand and had built a potential plutonium reactor at the industrial city of Arak.

  Meanwhile, Congress passed sanctions bills with overwhelming bipartisan support, reflecting its deep concern about Iran’s nuclear progress. The text of one of those bills in 2010 stated: “The serious and urgent nature of the threat from Iran demands that the United States work together with its allies to do everything possible … to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability.” In coming years, Congress aimed sanctions at Iran’s central bank, at entities around the globe supporting the Iranian oil economy, and at Iranian shipbuilding and ports. None of these sanctions was designed to produce regime change in Iran; the United States and its allies simply sought to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

  Iran continued to move ahead. Congress and President Obama understood that sanctions had been ineffective largely because the United States had never mobilized a vigorous multilateral coalition that could mount a true economic blockade. As a result, our sanctions against Iran always “leaked.” An effective sanctions regime would require the cooperation of Russia, China, India, and Japan—the largest consumers of Iranian oil. In addition, European banks and industries would need to forgo opportunities to trade with a lucrative partner. Diplomats dispatched by the Obama administration fanned out across the world, gaining support for a new sanctions regime and shoring up its implementation. In the end, the United States built a multilateral coalition to enforce sanctions effectively. The administration also persuaded Russia, China, India, and Japan to find substitutes for Iranian oil, at least for a while. The new sanctions began to slow Iran’s economy.2

  Partly as a result of economic dislocation, in June 2013 Hassan Rouhani was elected president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Considered a moderate by Iranian standards, Rouhani had argued that Iran’s economic situation could be improved through better integration with the West. As the chief negotiator for nuclear talks from 2003 to 2005, he was known in Iran as the “diplomat sheikh.” In one campaign debate he observed, tellingly, that “it is good to have centrifuges running, provided people’s lives and livelihoods are also running.” He promised to work to lift the sanctions.

  Three days after his inauguration Rouhani called for the resumption of nuclear negotiations with the international community: “We are ready—seriously and without wasting time—to engage in serious and substantive talks with the other sides. I am certain the concerns of the two sides would be removed through talks in a short period of time.”

  The Iranian president is an important political figure in his country, but his opinions and statements are not the last word. The final decision about Iranian foreign policy—particularly with respect to nuclear issues and the country’s relationships with the West—is reserved for the supreme leader, who wields both religious and political authority. Iran’s supreme leader was Ali Khamenei, a man deeply distrustful of the West and jealous of Iran’s nuclear sovereignty. He controlled hard-line institutions such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the military and intended to keep Rouhani on a short leash. This internal dynamic was a reality that diplomats had to take into account: Iranians anxious for a deal could be pushed only so far.

  Although the sanctions had dealt a serious blow to Iran’s economy, they had not stopped its nuclear program. In fact, by August 2013 Iran had installed roughly nineteen thousand centrifuges and had produced enough enriched uranium to make ten nuclear bombs. American and Israeli intelligence agencies concluded that if it were so inclined Iran could break out to a bomb in as little as two or three months.

  In September, President Obama called President Rouhani, establishing the highest-level contact between the United States and Iran in almost thirty-five years.3 After the call, President Obama made a statement at the White House: “While there will surely be important obstacles to moving forward and success is by no means guaranteed, I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution.” Rouhani’s openness to some sort of deal was received in Iran by a mix of protesters, some cheering
his diplomatic activity, others chanting, “Our people are awake and hate America!” and pelting his limousine with eggs and shoes.4

  In November 2013, just months after President Obama’s call to Rouhani, the P5+1 powers announced an interim agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. Designed to allow negotiations to continue toward a comprehensive, longer-term solution, the agreement limited some of Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for a temporary easing of sanctions. Iran would be allowed access to some of its own frozen funds on a monthly basis provided that it abided by the terms of the interim deal. This arrangement—sanctions relief in exchange for nuclear limits—signaled to Congress that the president would rely on waiver authority granted to him in previous legislation to lift sanctions in any final deal.

  President Obama used his 2015 State of the Union address to make his case:

  Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material. Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran, secures America and our allies—including Israel—while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict. There are no guarantees that negotiations will succeed, and I keep all options on the table to prevent a nuclear Iran.

  At this sensitive time in diplomatic negotiations, the president asked Congress to refrain from passing additional sanctions.

  III. The “Sheldon Primary”

  Additional congressional sanctions turned out not to be the president’s immediate challenge. Just one day after the State of the Union address, the American people—and their president—learned that Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had secretly invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress about the prospective nuclear deal. They had invited him to come knowing that he would condemn the deal.

  Speaker Boehner explained his actions by reminding the House Republican caucus: “You may have seen … the President warned us not to move ahead with sanctions on Iran, a state sponsor of terror. His exact message to us was, ‘Hold your fire.’ He expects us to stand idly by and do nothing while he cuts a bad deal with Iran. Two words: Hell no!” To defend his decision to invite Netanyahu, the Speaker referred to the need for a national discussion about looming security threats, which he said the president had “kind of papered over.”

  Six weeks later, senators and representatives filed onto the floor of the House for a joint session of Congress. On the same podium where President Obama had stood to deliver his State of the Union speech, the Israeli prime minister asserted that the proposed deal “doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.” He went on: “This deal won’t be a farewell to arms. It would be a farewell to arms control. And the Middle East would soon be crisscrossed by nuclear trip wires. A region where small skirmishes can trigger big wars would turn into a nuclear tinderbox.” And he warned pointedly: “Iran’s regime is not merely a Jewish problem, any more than the Nazi regime was merely a Jewish problem. The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were but a fraction of the 60 million people killed in World War II. So, too, Iran’s regime poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also the peace of the entire world.”

  I sat on the House floor pondering the solemn trust and the accompanying pressure that Prime Minister Netanyahu carried to ensure Israel’s survival. His burden is real and it is heavy. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help imagining what Netanyahu’s reaction would have been if President Obama had accepted an invitation from the opposition coalition to address the Knesset about Iran’s nuclear program—without anyone letting Netanyahu know in advance.

  A former Reagan foreign policy adviser, Robert Kagan, had ventured a similar concern. In a Washington Post op-ed, he asked:

  Is anyone thinking about the future? From now on, whenever the opposition party happens to control Congress—a common enough occurrence—it may call in a foreign leader to speak to a joint meeting of Congress against a President and his policies. Think of how this might have played out in the past. A Democratic-controlled Congress in the 1980s might, for instance, have called the Nobel Prize–winning Costa Rican President Óscar Arias Sánchez to denounce President Ronald Reagan’s policies in Central America. A Democratic-controlled Congress in 2003 might have called French President Jacques Chirac to oppose President George W. Bush’s impending war in Iraq.

  Within a week of the prime minister’s address, Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, who had been in the Senate for less than ninety days, circulated a letter during a Republican caucus lunch. Letters circulated at these lunches are typically light fare: corralling support for noncontroversial legislation, such as commissioning commemorative stamps and coins. Cotton’s was different. He addressed it to the “Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Forty-six Republican senators signed the letter. Seven did not.5 Susan Collins explained her refusal to sign: “It’s more appropriate for members of the Senate to give advice to the president, to Secretary Kerry and to the negotiators … I don’t think that the Ayatollah is going to be particularly convinced by a letter from members of the Senate.”

  In his letter, Cotton decided to give the mullahs a civics lesson:

  First, under our Constitution, while the President negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate). Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.

  President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades. What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei.

  To summarize: led by Cotton, nearly half of the United States Senate wrote to Iranian hard-liners in the midst of an arms control negotiation in an attempt to undermine that negotiation.6 There is no true analogue in American history, but here are some counterfactuals. Suppose forty-seven Republican senators had written to Stalin (or even Churchill) as Roosevelt steamed to Yalta to negotiate the close of World War II; or forty-seven Republicans had written to Fidel Castro as President John F. Kennedy took steps to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis; or forty-seven Democratic senators had written to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as President George H. W. Bush negotiated the START arms control treaty.

  For his part, President Obama observed, “I think it’s somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran. It’s an unusual coalition.”7 The president knew well that political factions in Iran, primarily the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, were undermining any deal on the grounds that the United States would break its promises—an argument that the letter from the senators powerfully reinforced.

  Normally, the president would have sole authority to negotiate an agreement such as the Iran deal. The Obama administration defended its constitutional authority. It explained that in the past, presidents of both parties had negotiated agreements resulting in robust changes to foreign policy without congressional approval. These included the Atlantic Charter, negotiated by President Roosevelt in 1941 (a joint declaration with Great Britain outlining common principles for the postwar international order); and the Shanghai Communiqué, negotiated by President Nixon in 1972 (a joint declaration with China that led to the normalization of relations). Moreover, unlike arms control treaties with Russia and the Soviet Union that had to be submitted for congressional approval, the Iran deal required no alteration in our own nuclear arsenal. Instead, the deal required Iran to alter its nuclear program in exchange for relief from bro
ad economic sanctions. The administration pointed out that its authority to waive sanctions derived from language contained within the sanctions legislation itself.

  Nevertheless, the substantive and political significance of the Iran nuclear agreement meant that many members of Congress, including me, wanted the chance to review it before the United States signed on the dotted line. Congress granted itself this opportunity in May 2015 by passing the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which permitted Congress to reject the agreement before the president could lift sanctions against Iran. President Obama signed it, making it law and subjecting his deal with Iran to congressional review.8

  On July 14, 2015, the P5+1 powers announced the final terms of the nuclear deal with Iran. Formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it ran to more than one hundred fifty pages. Once Iran accepted and implemented certain restrictions on its nuclear program and submitted to international monitoring and inspections to verify its actions, the United States, our allies, and the UN Security Council would lift sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program.

  The deal required Iran to affirm that it would never seek, develop, or acquire nuclear weapons, and that it would also agree to:

  • Limit its uranium enrichment and other activities, including specific R&D activities, for the first eight years