New Congress, new nuclear showdown over Iran

With fewer than two months until diplomats’ March 1 framework agreement deadline, and expecting the White House to start knocking on swing senators’ doors, supporters know the clock is ticking to pass a sanctions bill they say will ratchet up pressure on Iran. But for opponents of additional sanctions, the ticking is more like a time bomb as a sanctions bill will torpedo negotiations and set the U.S. on a path to war with Iran, they claim.

For Sen. Mark Kirk, the Republican half of the Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill he has pushed for the last three years, the sooner a sanctions bill hits the Senate floor, the better — both politically and policy-wise.

“If the Senate was allowed to vote tomorrow, I would be able to get two-thirds,” Kirk said Sunday in a phone interview. “Now is the time to put pressure on Iran especially with oil prices so low. We are uniquely advantaged at this time to shut down this nuclear program.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), another major proponent of the legislation, told CNN last month the Kirk-Menendez bill “will come up for a vote in January,” a pledge he made the same day to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting in Jerusalem.

To accomplish that, FCNL has worked with other groups like J Street and about 70 other groups in an expanding coalition opposing the sanctions in an effort to paint the debate not as a benchmark for support for Israel, but rather what Gould calls a “wider, anti-war issue” that resonates with a war-weary public.

That’s where groups like VoteVets.org come in. The group, which represents more than 400,000 pro-peace veterans and their families, is looking to drive home the risks and repercussions of war.

“As a veteran I was sent to Iraq and you know there are still ambiguous causes for that conflict. We rushed in with bad intel and it could have been a very avoidable situation,” said Garett Reppenhagen, who leads the group’s grassroots effort against the sanctions bill. “I know firsthand the consequences of failed negotiations.”

CNN