Growing signs Schumer will oppose Iran deal

More than 10,000 phone calls have flooded his office linethe past two weeks, organized by a group looking to kill the deal. Anothergroup has dropped seven figures on TV in New York City to pressure Schumer andother lawmakers to vote against the plan.
And Dov Hikind, a state assemblyman from Brooklyn, was arrested for disorderly conduct while protesting the deal outside Schumer’s office.
People who have spoken with the senior New York senator believe the pressure campaign is having an effect: They say there is a growing sense inside and outside the Capitol that Schumer will vote against the deal when the Senate considers it in September. The bigger question many have now is this: How hard will he push against it?
Schumer is one of about 15 Democratic senators who will decide the fate of President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal in Congress. The president can afford to lose no more than a dozen Democrats on the Senate floor, and as the next Democratic leader, Schumer may be the most critical of them all.
In an interview with POLITICO, Schumer insisted he’s still weighing his vote. He said he would decide based on the merits of the deal, not lobbying from either side.
“I haven’t made up my mind,” said Schumer, who is in line to be the first Jewish Senate leader next Congress. “There are expectations all over the lot. I’m doing what I’m always doing when I have a very difficult decision: Learning it carefully and giving it my best shot, doing what I think is right. I’m not going to let pressure or politics or party get in the way of that.”
He wouldn’t say if he would forcefully advocate his position once he makes his stance clear.
“I’ve got to first decide how I’m voting,” Schumer said.
Opponents have been much louder than supporters. If that trend continues over the break at town hall meetings, it will only amplify pressure on swing Democrats to vote against the deal.

Sen. Chris Coons, who was personally lobbied by President Barack Obama and national security adviser Susan Rice to back the deal during a trip to Africa in July, said the view of the accord was about evenly split in his home state of Delaware in the first few days after the announcement. But the Democrat now says telephone calls against the deal outnumber those in favor by 10-to-1 in his state, an avalanche of opposition he has no choice but to listen to.
“I am a Democrat, and I would like to be able to support this agreement,” Coons said. “But I have serious reservations about it.”
Schumer does as well. As the next Democratic leader after Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) retires in January 2017, Schumer is seen as a bellwether among the handful of fence-sitting Democrats who may buck the White House and try to kill the sweeping accord. That leaves Schumer stuck between pro-Israel forces who have long been a key base of support and who are trying to kill the deal — and the White House and its progressive allies who are eager to secure a centerpiece of Obama’s foreign policy legacy and stave off a potential war.
Schumer will be criticized no matter what he does. If he tries to lobby members against the deal, he’ll be lashed by the left for undermining both President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and precipitating another conflict in the Middle East. If he quietly opposes the deal, he’ll be criticized by his hawkish Israel supporters for not doing enough to scuttle the agreement.
And if he supports it, he’s bound to get slammed by powerful Jewish donors and constituents who have long been among his staunchest supporters.

“Boy, I’m glad I’m not Chuck Schumer, I’ll tell ya,” said a smirking John McCain (R-Ariz.), a friend of the New York Democrat. “He’s got the toughest vote of his career coming.”
Congress has 60 days to consider the Iran nuclear agreement, which was reached between the United States, five world powers and Iran, meaning decisive votes will occur no later than September 17th. The agreement seeks to pare back Iran’s nuclear program, opening its facilities to inspections and monitoring, in exchange for lifting sanctions.
Congress vote is on whether to lift legislative sanctions, which have been key to bringing Iran to the negotiating table and would provide major economic relief if Congress lets the deal go through. Republicans will need a veto-proof, two-thirds majority to scuttle the deal, a high bar that will require a sizable bloc of Democratic opposition.
Skeptics in both parties fear the plan will make Iran richer but do little to curtail the country’s nuclear ambitions. Nowhere is that feeling more prevalent than in New York, with one of the most politically active Jewish populations. 

If Schumer wanted to persuade members to side with him, “Chuck would have let his intentions known a long time ago, and everybody would have known,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Winning over members now, Manchin added, “would be much more difficult.”
The Iran vote could reverberate for Democratic senators facing tough reelection races in the coming years, especially if they back the accord and it fails to rein in Iran. Only one of them, Colorado’s Michael Bennet, is up in 2016; several others will be on the ballot in 2018.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a moderate who faces voters in three years, said she’s still carefully weighing the agreement.
In the Senate, the other members of the leadership team, including Reid, Schumer and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), are playing coy.
 

Asked why he hadn’t made a decision yet, Reid replied: “Have you made a decision?” Informed that reporters don’t cast votes on bills, he responded, “Yeah, well” and then walked into the Senate chamber....more

Congress ought to reject the Iran deal

By Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Ron DeSantis
We are faced with a bad deal that will significantly degrade our national security
Over the last several months the Obama Administration has consistently maintained that no deal with Iran is better than a bad deal, but we now know this claim — as with many claims made throughout these negotiations — was merely political spin. The deal announced by the Obama Administration last week provides Iran with $150 billion in unfrozen assets with which to fund terrorism, puts our national security at risk, and does little to stop Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon. For these reasons and others we believe that Congress must reject this deal.
President Obama promised that a deal with Iran would “make our world safer”, but it’s difficult to believe that giving the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism more money contributes anything to our safety. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iranian-supplied roadside bombs accounted for as many as 1,500 American combat deaths. These deaths were orchestrated by the Quds Force from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leader, Qasem Soleimani. For those that served there this memory is still raw. When we remember those fallen comrades as well as those who lost their lives in Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks it is difficult to believe we would enter into a deal with a regime that supports such behavior.
The recent rantings of Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei are sufficient to dispel any notion that this deal with Iran will cause the ayatollahs to disavow terrorism and join the civilized world. When followers of the ayatollahs chant “death to America” in the streets, they mean it. They will stop at nothing to end our way of life. Worse, the Obama administration has acknowledged that the Iranian regime will plow a portion — if not all — of the monetary windfall it receives from the deal into terrorism. That terrorism is likely to be targeted at the United States and our allies.
During his reelection campaign, President Obama also promised that any deal with Iran would require Iran to “give up its nuclear program and abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place,” which do not permit Iran to enrich uranium. The president said flatly that “the deal we’ll accept is to end their nuclear program. It’s very straightforward.” In fact, it didn’t end up being so straightforward. The deal goes beyond the mere acceptance of an Iranian nuclear program; it requires the international community to facilitate Iran’s program, even to assist Iran in protecting its program from sabotage. Just a few years ago, a deal that permitted Iran to develop advanced centrifuges would have been unthinkable. The deal makes the international community, including the United States, active sponsors of Iran’s development of a nuclear weapons capability fortified against outside efforts to sabotage it.
When explaining the deal to the American people, President Obama said it was based on verification, not trust. Yet this deal forces us to rely on a convoluted bureaucratic process to even initiate the inspections of undeclared nuclear sites that are critical to ensure that Iran is not assembling a nuclear weapon. Iran can drag that process out for 24 days, concealing any offending conduct in the meantime. This is a far cry from “anytime, anywhere” inspections his administration lauded earlier in the negotiating process.
And if violations are identified the deal includes an explicit provision relieving Iran of its obligations under the deal in the event that the sanctions are reinstated. This represents a “nuclear snapback” that will likely negate the prospect of imposing sanctions in response to Iranian violations. Worse, the deal even lifts sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, including Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, whose activities killed so many American servicemen in Iraq.more

With or without deal, US must uphold commitments to Iranian dissidents

By Cols. Wesley Martin (ret.), Leo McCloskey (ret.) and Thomas Cantwell (ret.)
 
The U.S. and other key world powers concluded a controversial nuclear agreement with Iran in mid-July, which left the regime’s nuclear infrastructure in place but conceded to lifting crippling sanctions.
The administration has been widely criticized for failing to negotiate the release of American hostages held by the regime, including an American pastor, a former Marine and a journalist. The administration has claimed that this demand was a separate issue from the nuclear deal. Still, when it came to Iranian demands, it agreed to lift conventional weapons embargo and sanctions on Tehran’s missile program, which was also a non-nuclear issue.
Now, it has been revealed that the administration is also staying quiet as the Iranian regime has increased pressure on dissidents taking refuge in neighboring Iraq. For months now, nearly 2,500 Iranian political refugees residing in Camp Liberty, Iraq, have been subjected to frequent blockades by the Iraqi government and deprived of the most vital life-support needs.
On numerous occasions, including since the conclusion of nuclear weapons negotiations, the Iraqi government, acting at the behest Tehran, prevented the entry of food, fuel and other vital resources, triggering a humanitarian crisis at the decrepit camp, already beset by extensive infrastructure problems. The government only relented after intense pressure by members of the both chambers of U.S. Congress and both houses of British Parliament. 
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