Courage Is A Voting Issue*
Iranian Diplomacy in the Age of Obama
There was a big piece of political news that dropped last night. In fact, it dropped right before the Republican debates, which is probably why a lot of you didn’t hear about it until today. Here’s the scoop – Chuck Schumer is going to vote against the Iran nuclear deal. Schumer is one of the two Senators from New York and the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate behind Minority Leader Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, the Minority Whip. This would be bad enough, but Schumer is also the most likely replacement for Harry Reid’s position as party leader in the Senate. So, it should be concerning to Democrats that the new party leader is siding against one of President Obama’s most significant achievements, a negotiated agreement with Iran to help prevent the growth of its nuclear weapons program. This deal is a big freaking deal, pardon the pun, and a successful Congressional resolution of disapproval would be nothing short of absolute stupidity on behalf of the United States Congress.
I. It’s Not The First Rodeo
This isn’t the first time that Schumer has taken a direct stand against President Obama. Some of you may remember the incident in 2014, when he chided Democrats for being too focused on the Affordable Care Act. (Mimms) And this is the guy we want to run Democratic politics in the Senate?
It would be one thing if Schumer was a minor Senator in the Democratic caucus. But Schumer is far from minor – he’s an important enough Senator that his defection could put the entire deal in jeopardy. You know who republished Schumer’s argument against the deal, in full? Mitch McConnell. (Dovere) You read that correctly; the Senate majority leader trying to stop Obama’s diplomatic efforts thought Schumer would be a great advocate for their position.
II. The Schumer mini-Crisis
Now, does Schumer’s opposition mean the Iran deal is doomed? Hardly. There may very well be 60 votes in the Senate to pass a resolution of disapproval, but it seems much less likely that there are 67 votes to override a guaranteed veto from President Obama. However, Schumer does make Obama’s task - assembling enough Democrats to protect the veto - more difficult. First, he is a Senator with a great deal on issues implicating Israel, which the Iran deal certainly does. Second, and more importantly, the signal of a senior Democrat denying support to the president gives other Democrats cover to vote against the deal. (Beauchamp) This has provoked a huge degree of backlash from Team Obama, who hoped that Schumer would announce his decision at a later date, to allow the White House to lock up more Democratic support. (Dovere)
III. Destination: Wonk-ville
Schumer’s full argument against the Iran deal can be found below. (Schumer) Given the veto problem, I would be frustrated enough about Schumer, but I think he makes some pretty fundamental mistakes in concluding that a world of ‘no deal’ is preferable to the deal. Let’s break down his argument step-by-step
1a. Inspections have a 24-day delay, thus Iran could manufacture non-radioactive elements of a bomb without detection.
1b. The 24-day delay makes it difficult to determine what Iran was doing at a particular site, even if we do detect radioactivity.
2. The US must rely on the Joint Commission to demand inspections, instead of making a unilateral judgment call.
3. The sanctions “snapback” provision is too weak to prevent future Iranian cheating and difficult to implement.
4. Iran will be able to advance a nuclear program in 15 years, since it will have strong growth after sanctions relief and will no longer be bound by the deal.
5. Iran will use newfound relief money to cause chaos in the Middle East, including the creation of new ICBMs.
6. Iran won’t become more moderate under the deal.
7. Schumer’s alternative solutions to the Iran problem.
So, before diving into the details (where the devils are), let’s quickly recap what the nuclear deal actually does.
“Iran will give up about 14,000 of its 20,000 centrifuges.
Iran
will give up all but its most rudimentary, outdated centrifuges: Its
first-generation IR-1s, knockoffs of 1970s European models, are all it gets to
keep. It will not be allowed to build or develop newer models.
Iran
will give up 97 percent of its enriched uranium; it will hold on to only 300
kilograms of its 10,000-kilogram stockpile in its current form.
Iran
will destroy or export the core of its plutonium plant at Arak, and replace it
with a new core that cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium. It will ship out
all spent nuclear fuel.” (Fisher)
All of these provisions would be pretty devastating to Iran’s ambitions, assuming Iran actually follows them, which is why the inspection mechanisms that Schumer decries are the final nail in the coffin. In fact, they’re so remarkably robust that multiple nonproliferation scholars assigned them an “A” grade. (Fisher)
1. Iran needs two critical elements for a successful nuclear weapons program: uranium ore and centrifuges. Take both of those away and the worst thing Iran would be able to build is a nice-looking missile – not very scary. And the deal has both uranium ore and centrifuges on lockdown. Iran only has two sites that can even mine uranium – fun fact, we helped them develop those sites back in the 1970s. Those will obviously be monitored very carefully to make sure Iran isn’t spiriting uranium away into the night. We’ll also be keeping tabs on centrifuges and every permutation you can think of – the 6,000 existing ones (that they aren’t giving up – they won’t have possession of the rest), Iran’s centrifuge factories, centrifuge-manufacturing machines, and any future imports of machines that could make a centrifuge. They all have to be declared and monitored. And the restrictions also expand to dual-use technology, technology that has both nuclear and non-nuclear uses, thus resolving problems surrounding other bomb elements. Conservative estimates for Iran manufacturing a nuclear weapon after the deal are at least a year, so it’s not as if Iran could make one in under a month. For that matter, it’s basically impossible to erase all evidence of a covert facility with radiation in 24 days. (Gordon) I’ll grant Schumer that the delay isn’t ideal, but not a reason that the deal is bad. Iran will be caught if they try to covertly create a weapon, and the deal has plenty of provisions to deter Iran from this route. Also, most of our intelligence about Iranian facilities isn’t collected by inspectors, and that obviously doesn’t change after the deal is signed.
2. Schumer’s next argument is that the Joint Commission must call for inspections. The desire for the driver’s seat is typically American, but this complaint doesn’t seem to hold much weight. The eight members of the Joint Commission are the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, Iran itself, and the European Union. While Iran is obviously anti-inspection, and Russia and China are not always the best of allies, it seems hollow to suggest that the European members of the Commission would refuse to grant inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities. Schumer first presupposes that both Russia and China would not cooperate – while I don’t intend to focus here, those two votes obviously aren’t set in stone and will probably respond to current geopolitical conditions. He then argues that the EU will increase economic relations with Iran, and thus, will vote to impede inspections to protect trade ties. Sanctions are often to the economic detriment of the host country, but every other member of the Commission saw fit to impose them on Iran to prevent Iranian nuclearization. It seems more reasonable to suggest that they would do so again, particularly if Iran appeared to be cheating the terms of the deal. Finally, Schumer ignores the political costs of a ‘no’ vote – not only would there be backlash from the United States, a close political and economic ally to Britain, France, Germany, and other European powers, but from countries including Israel and Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia that have no interest in allowing Iran to gain nuclear weapons. The incentives are not as one-sided as Schumer suggested.
3. Schumer’s third argument is about the “snapback” sanctions provision. I should probably define this term before we dive in to what I consider Schumer’s best argument against the deal. The “snapback” provision refers to a section of the deal that allows for the re-imposition of stringent multilateral international sanctions if Iran is caught violating the deal. If we think Iran is cheating, we bring the issue to the Joint Commission. If the Commission doesn’t do anything, it next moves on to the UN Security Council. If the UNSC doesn’t do anything in 30 days, the sanctions automatically come back. And because the United States has veto power, we could guarantee that nothing happened for the necessary month. (Fisher) Schumer is correct that this process is both not immediate and is somewhat unwieldy, but the penalties should be harsh enough to prevent Iran from testing the international community.
There is one more obvious argument to make, which is that all of these provisions are better than letting the deal crumble and getting nothing back. We get inspections, monitoring, and a method to put all of the sanctions back in place if Iran tries to cheat. Schumer acknowledges all of this, and says that his other concerns should be sufficient to trump that claim. So, let’s talk about the other ones.
4. Yes, many of the constraints on Iran’s nuclear program expire in fifteen years. Make no mistake, though. We could stop Iran from making a nuclear bomb today. So could Israel and other allies, with US cooperation. (Allison) Schumer doesn’t advance a reason why this would be false fifteen years down the road, and fifteen years without worrying about whether the US will have to use military force against Iran sounds pretty good to me. Heck, using force against Iran could even be easier in the future, because we’ll have all the reports from inspectors about uranium supplies, centrifuges, etc.
5. Yes, the deal does not prohibit Iran from engaging in other activities in the Middle East that might be detrimental to US interests. Sanctions don’t seem to do that, either. We’ve had years of unilateral and multilateral sanctions on Iran, and yet those never prevented Iran from supporting terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, propping up Assad’s regime in what’s left of Syria, threatening Israel, etc. More importantly, the US and our allies are just as free after the deal to create policies to counter Iranian economic and military influence as they were before the deal was signed. (Allison) Iran will be deterred from aggressive adventurism by the usual forces – economic ties, including new investment from the West after the lifting of sanctions, and the powerful military alliance of the US, Israel, and other Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia that are hypersensitive to Iran’s presence in the region. Even if they manage to acquire ICBMs that could target the US, Schumer gives no reason why Iran would ever want to use them. The closest he comes is a line of argument that suggests that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps might have more influence once the Supreme Leader allows the moderates a victory in the form of the Iran deal. Last time I checked, the IRGC would want the country to continue in one piece – and they know that US retaliation could quite literally blow the country apart if they were foolish enough to launch a missile at the US homeland.
6. Finally, Schumer argues that the deal should be rejected because Iran will not become more moderate. This one of Schumer's arguments is certainly correct - the deal does not necessarily moderate Iran. (Fisher and Taub) I personally never thought that the Iran deal would accomplish that goal by itself; neither do arms control experts. Iran’s ambitions for status in the Middle East and the international community haven’t disappeared overnight. It would be cool if further integration with the international community did make Iran’s leaders less prone to ideological conflicts with other countries in the region, but that’s a benefit that is absolutely unnecessary to justify the deal.
7. Before the final section of this post, I should go over Schumer’s proposed alternative to the deal. I’ll even quote it in full. “Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations, and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more…” This is perhaps the most ludicrous part of Schumer’s entire statement. After Iran has given a gold mine’s worth of concessions, why would rewarding them with further sanctions make them more willing to negotiate in the future? Until Rouhani’s election, we piled on sanctions over and over again during the W. years and it got us a whole lot of nothing. Actually, that’s not wholly accurate – it made Iran even more recalcitrant. Furthermore, if Iran is willing to make concessions and the US is unable to reciprocate, many experts believe that other countries will remove their sanctions on Iran anyway. (Keck) So, Schumer’s plan would actually collapse the sanctions regime ahead-of-schedule, but without all of the benefits that the deal provides in preventing a quick breakout time for an Iranian nuclear weapons program. And this is Schumer’s alternative?!
Senator, with all due respect, you need to try much harder to persuade me that this would be better than the agreement we have in front of us.
IV. Courage Is A Voting Issue
Now, I obviously think that Senator Schumer’s arguments against the deal are not very compelling. But even more frustrating to me was the manner in which they were delivered. Rather than releasing his decision to vote against the president at a time when it could be adequately covered by the media, Schumer waited until discussion of the Republican debates yesterday evening pushed his decision out of the news cycle. If you want to disagree with your party’s president on a major issue, don’t just sneak your disapproval into a busy news cycle. For a potential leader of the Senate, this is both disappointing and a pathetic representation of political courage. One theory is that Schumer simply wants to signal disapproval without publicly campaigning against the deal. (Beauchamp) Fair enough, but if so, this begs the question of why Schumer chose to release his decision this week, instead of allowing the president to first create a veto-proof majority to protect one of the most important diplomatic breakthroughs in years.
~ Jonathan Barsky
* Full credit to Tom Schally for this wonderful phrase
All of these provisions would be pretty devastating to Iran’s ambitions, assuming Iran actually follows them, which is why the inspection mechanisms that Schumer decries are the final nail in the coffin. In fact, they’re so remarkably robust that multiple nonproliferation scholars assigned them an “A” grade. (Fisher)
1. Iran needs two critical elements for a successful nuclear weapons program: uranium ore and centrifuges. Take both of those away and the worst thing Iran would be able to build is a nice-looking missile – not very scary. And the deal has both uranium ore and centrifuges on lockdown. Iran only has two sites that can even mine uranium – fun fact, we helped them develop those sites back in the 1970s. Those will obviously be monitored very carefully to make sure Iran isn’t spiriting uranium away into the night. We’ll also be keeping tabs on centrifuges and every permutation you can think of – the 6,000 existing ones (that they aren’t giving up – they won’t have possession of the rest), Iran’s centrifuge factories, centrifuge-manufacturing machines, and any future imports of machines that could make a centrifuge. They all have to be declared and monitored. And the restrictions also expand to dual-use technology, technology that has both nuclear and non-nuclear uses, thus resolving problems surrounding other bomb elements. Conservative estimates for Iran manufacturing a nuclear weapon after the deal are at least a year, so it’s not as if Iran could make one in under a month. For that matter, it’s basically impossible to erase all evidence of a covert facility with radiation in 24 days. (Gordon) I’ll grant Schumer that the delay isn’t ideal, but not a reason that the deal is bad. Iran will be caught if they try to covertly create a weapon, and the deal has plenty of provisions to deter Iran from this route. Also, most of our intelligence about Iranian facilities isn’t collected by inspectors, and that obviously doesn’t change after the deal is signed.
2. Schumer’s next argument is that the Joint Commission must call for inspections. The desire for the driver’s seat is typically American, but this complaint doesn’t seem to hold much weight. The eight members of the Joint Commission are the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, Iran itself, and the European Union. While Iran is obviously anti-inspection, and Russia and China are not always the best of allies, it seems hollow to suggest that the European members of the Commission would refuse to grant inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities. Schumer first presupposes that both Russia and China would not cooperate – while I don’t intend to focus here, those two votes obviously aren’t set in stone and will probably respond to current geopolitical conditions. He then argues that the EU will increase economic relations with Iran, and thus, will vote to impede inspections to protect trade ties. Sanctions are often to the economic detriment of the host country, but every other member of the Commission saw fit to impose them on Iran to prevent Iranian nuclearization. It seems more reasonable to suggest that they would do so again, particularly if Iran appeared to be cheating the terms of the deal. Finally, Schumer ignores the political costs of a ‘no’ vote – not only would there be backlash from the United States, a close political and economic ally to Britain, France, Germany, and other European powers, but from countries including Israel and Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia that have no interest in allowing Iran to gain nuclear weapons. The incentives are not as one-sided as Schumer suggested.
3. Schumer’s third argument is about the “snapback” sanctions provision. I should probably define this term before we dive in to what I consider Schumer’s best argument against the deal. The “snapback” provision refers to a section of the deal that allows for the re-imposition of stringent multilateral international sanctions if Iran is caught violating the deal. If we think Iran is cheating, we bring the issue to the Joint Commission. If the Commission doesn’t do anything, it next moves on to the UN Security Council. If the UNSC doesn’t do anything in 30 days, the sanctions automatically come back. And because the United States has veto power, we could guarantee that nothing happened for the necessary month. (Fisher) Schumer is correct that this process is both not immediate and is somewhat unwieldy, but the penalties should be harsh enough to prevent Iran from testing the international community.
There is one more obvious argument to make, which is that all of these provisions are better than letting the deal crumble and getting nothing back. We get inspections, monitoring, and a method to put all of the sanctions back in place if Iran tries to cheat. Schumer acknowledges all of this, and says that his other concerns should be sufficient to trump that claim. So, let’s talk about the other ones.
4. Yes, many of the constraints on Iran’s nuclear program expire in fifteen years. Make no mistake, though. We could stop Iran from making a nuclear bomb today. So could Israel and other allies, with US cooperation. (Allison) Schumer doesn’t advance a reason why this would be false fifteen years down the road, and fifteen years without worrying about whether the US will have to use military force against Iran sounds pretty good to me. Heck, using force against Iran could even be easier in the future, because we’ll have all the reports from inspectors about uranium supplies, centrifuges, etc.
5. Yes, the deal does not prohibit Iran from engaging in other activities in the Middle East that might be detrimental to US interests. Sanctions don’t seem to do that, either. We’ve had years of unilateral and multilateral sanctions on Iran, and yet those never prevented Iran from supporting terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, propping up Assad’s regime in what’s left of Syria, threatening Israel, etc. More importantly, the US and our allies are just as free after the deal to create policies to counter Iranian economic and military influence as they were before the deal was signed. (Allison) Iran will be deterred from aggressive adventurism by the usual forces – economic ties, including new investment from the West after the lifting of sanctions, and the powerful military alliance of the US, Israel, and other Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia that are hypersensitive to Iran’s presence in the region. Even if they manage to acquire ICBMs that could target the US, Schumer gives no reason why Iran would ever want to use them. The closest he comes is a line of argument that suggests that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps might have more influence once the Supreme Leader allows the moderates a victory in the form of the Iran deal. Last time I checked, the IRGC would want the country to continue in one piece – and they know that US retaliation could quite literally blow the country apart if they were foolish enough to launch a missile at the US homeland.
6. Finally, Schumer argues that the deal should be rejected because Iran will not become more moderate. This one of Schumer's arguments is certainly correct - the deal does not necessarily moderate Iran. (Fisher and Taub) I personally never thought that the Iran deal would accomplish that goal by itself; neither do arms control experts. Iran’s ambitions for status in the Middle East and the international community haven’t disappeared overnight. It would be cool if further integration with the international community did make Iran’s leaders less prone to ideological conflicts with other countries in the region, but that’s a benefit that is absolutely unnecessary to justify the deal.
7. Before the final section of this post, I should go over Schumer’s proposed alternative to the deal. I’ll even quote it in full. “Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations, and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more…” This is perhaps the most ludicrous part of Schumer’s entire statement. After Iran has given a gold mine’s worth of concessions, why would rewarding them with further sanctions make them more willing to negotiate in the future? Until Rouhani’s election, we piled on sanctions over and over again during the W. years and it got us a whole lot of nothing. Actually, that’s not wholly accurate – it made Iran even more recalcitrant. Furthermore, if Iran is willing to make concessions and the US is unable to reciprocate, many experts believe that other countries will remove their sanctions on Iran anyway. (Keck) So, Schumer’s plan would actually collapse the sanctions regime ahead-of-schedule, but without all of the benefits that the deal provides in preventing a quick breakout time for an Iranian nuclear weapons program. And this is Schumer’s alternative?!
Senator, with all due respect, you need to try much harder to persuade me that this would be better than the agreement we have in front of us.
IV. Courage Is A Voting Issue
Now, I obviously think that Senator Schumer’s arguments against the deal are not very compelling. But even more frustrating to me was the manner in which they were delivered. Rather than releasing his decision to vote against the president at a time when it could be adequately covered by the media, Schumer waited until discussion of the Republican debates yesterday evening pushed his decision out of the news cycle. If you want to disagree with your party’s president on a major issue, don’t just sneak your disapproval into a busy news cycle. For a potential leader of the Senate, this is both disappointing and a pathetic representation of political courage. One theory is that Schumer simply wants to signal disapproval without publicly campaigning against the deal. (Beauchamp) Fair enough, but if so, this begs the question of why Schumer chose to release his decision this week, instead of allowing the president to first create a veto-proof majority to protect one of the most important diplomatic breakthroughs in years.
~ Jonathan Barsky
* Full credit to Tom Schally for this wonderful phrase
