John Kerry plays it cool in final push for Iran deal

By Michael Crowley

The secretary of state’s methodical approach could help keep some critics at bay, for now.

Maybe John Kerry isn’t desperate for an Iran nuclear deal after all.
The secretary of state’s mind-set has been a key subject for critics of the talks with Iran, with some saying they worry he’s too eager to cement his place in history by striking a deal.
But Kerry, as well as some of his powerful co-negotiators, are showing patience this week, willing to blow past a Tuesday deadline and face the threat of triggering a longer congressional review in order to secure a better deal. As Iran has raised tricky last-minute demands, Kerry and his team have stiffened America’s public stance, warning that the negotiations could go either way and that the U.S. will walk away if necessary.

“I think [Kerry’s] probably confident that he can come to an agreement but that he doesn’t care that much about this deadline or that deadline,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former Obama administration official who specializes in the Middle East. “Politically, it plays well here to the criticism that Kerry’s willing to pursue a deal at any cost. I don’t think that’s true, and showing a little patience is smart right now both for domestic politics in the U.S. and for signaling to the Iranians and others that they don’t have leverage because of this deadline.”The methodical approach could help keep some critics at bay, for now. Among those worried about Kerry’s ambitions are Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has said Kerry shouldn’t worry about his legacy and that walking away from a bad deal with Iran could be just as historic an achievement as reaching an accord.“Conceding on any remaining red lines just to avoid further congressional scrutiny would only make matters worse, so I again urge negotiators to hold firm, take their time and be prepared to step back from the table,” the Tennessee Republican said in a statement Tuesday.
Other lawmakers used the news that negotiators would not meet Tuesday’s deadline as a sign that the U.S. should abandon the talks. “Continued negotiations at this point will only lead to further U.S. concessions and a better deal for Iran that funds and emboldens this terrorist-sponsoring regime,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida who is running for president.
In Vienna, where the talks are being held, negotiators insisted a deal was still achievable and wanted by all parties.
The Iranians, meanwhile, confirmed demands that seemed designed to pressure the Americans: asking that the U.N. arms embargo on their country and sanctions targeting its ballistic missile program be lifted. To add a sense of urgency for the U.S., if a deal is submitted to Congress after Thursday — but before Sept. 7 — Congress will get an extra 30 days to review it.
The latest twists are normal in such a complex, multilateral negotiation, with every side trying to squeeze what it can out of the others, supporters of the talks argue. Earlier this year, when the various nations involved were trying to reach a preliminary “framework” for the accord, they blew past the deadline by a few days amid last-minute machinations.
“This is the tedious grind of diplomacy,” said Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, which backs the talks. “We are very close, but there are several tough issues remaining. Iran has to make a decision: Does it want this deal or not? … It is certainly worth it to give Iran a few more days to come around — even if if gives the rest of us a bad case of negotiations interruptus.”
In a sense, Kerry has more at stake than President Barack Obama when it comes to the Iran talks. During his 30-plus years in the public sphere, most of it in the Senate, he’s been criticized for being more talk than action. Obama, on the other hand, can point to several legacies, including the Affordable Care Act, a rapprochement with Cuba and killing Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
The Iranians have suggested they don’t care about a deadline. “Even if we do not finish by July 9, it will not be the end of the world,” an Iranian official told reporters at the scene in the Austrian capital. “We need to get a good agreement.”
During a background briefing Tuesday in Vienna, a senior U.S. official also dismissed the notion of deadlines dictating the terms of a deal, according to news reports.
The negotiators from Iran, the United States, Britain, France, China, Germany and Russia are aiming for a deal that lifts international sanctions on Iran in exchange for significant curbs on its nuclear program, which Tehran has always insisted is peaceful but which the West suspects is aimed at making weapons. The talks have progressed for more than 18 months under the auspices of an interim agreement, known as the Joint Plan of Action, that has given Iran some sanctions relief in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.
Throughout the talks, the U.S. has said that only nuclear-related sanctions would be lifted — not sanctions targeting Iran over its ballistic missile program, its support for terrorist groups or its human rights abuses.

Iran’s demands related to the 2007 U.N. arms embargo and sanctions on its ballistic missile program are not entirely new, experts say, but they show how difficult it will be to separate some sanctions from others. Some international sanctions against Iran ostensibly target its nuclear program but also deal with other types of weapons. The U.S. is loath to see Iran get new access to weapons of any kind because it could boost the Islamist government’s interference in Arab states such as Syria, Iraq and Yemen

Iran has always said that all sanctions related to its nuclear program must eventually be lifted and has denounced past U.N. resolutions against it.
“It’s been clear from the beginning, and the 2013 interim Joint Plan of Actio explicitly confirmed it, that the negotiation would need to address all U.N. Security Council resolutions, and those resolutions do include provisions on ballistic missiles and on the arms embargo,” said Simond de Galbert, a former member of France’s nuclear negotiating team and now a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Iran is well aware of the pressure Congress could bring to bear on any deal, and its decision to bring up the arms embargo and ballistic missiles could be a bet that the U.S. will cave to some demands to avoid giving lawmakers extra time to scrutinize the agreement. Thanks to a law reluctantly signed by Obama, Congress gets at least 30 calendar days to review a deal. If the agreement is submitted between July 10 and Sept. 7, Congress will have 60 days, in part to accommodate the summer recess in August.
The law, spearheaded by Corker, says only that the full text of an agreement must be “transmitted” to congressional leaders, and does not specify how, meaning negotiators could theoretically email an agreement just before midnight Eastern time Thursday (or 6 a.m. Friday in Vienna).
Under the law, Congress must vote by the end of its review period on whether to approve the deal and allow the president to suspend U.S. sanctions on Tehran. Even if the Republican-led Congress votes to disapprove of a deal, administration officials believe they can muster enough Democrats to uphold a presidential veto and preserve the accord.
Asked about the likelihood of a longer congressional review, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stressed that much of it would be vacation time for lawmakers. “It’s not as if Congress is going to spend the entire 60 days studying this agreement,” he said.
If the talks stretch through the summer — a distant but not impossible scenario — then the administration would gain a slight reprieve because Congress’ review period reverts back to 30 days if a deal is not reached and submitted by Sept. 7. By then, however, the administration would likely face more fundamental questions about whether Congress will pass new sanctions on Iran, and whether a deal is achievable at all.
As news of the deadline extension spread Tuesday, Republicans were split on its implications.
Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested the Obama administration shouldn’t rush a deal just to avoid extra congressional scrutiny. “If the administration negotiates a sound agreement, it should be able to withstand congressional scrutiny for 30, 60, or even 90 or 120 days. What is the rush?” the California Republican said.
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a Republican who has said taking military action against Iran to stop its nuclear program is a viable option, warned that “every [deadline] extension seems to come with more concessions because the Iranians have recognized the window for diplomacy never closes with this president, and therefore they keep pushing for more extensions, they keep making more outrageous demands.”
Meanwhile, a newsletter from the Republican National Committee said the missed deadline was “an embarrassing setback” and noted that Hillary Clinton, who is running for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, had helped launch the talks during her tenure as secretary of state.
Clinton, who is generally considered more hawkish than Obama on Iran, weighed in by saying she was proud of her role in bringing about the negotiations. She added, however, that there were critical issues at stake, especially when it comes to holding Iran accountable for its nuclear-related activities.
“There needs to be full transparency, disclosure, and verifiable inspections going forward, and certainly any part of the Iranian nuclear or military establishment that has anything to do with the program past, present, and future, needs to be subject to that,” she said.