US Senate pushes for new Iran sanctions if talks fail

A leading U.S. senator, despite resistance, is still pushing for new sanctions against the Iranian regime over its nuclear program, but claimed that he would be willing to set aside his efforts, if Obama would succumb to any agreement with Tehran, and let the Congress lawmakers accordingly reject or approve it.

Imposing such sanctions on the Iranian regime, to force it to curtail its nuclear weapons program has strong bilateral support in Congress. However, what has been made clear by them is that these proposed sanctions would go into effect only if the negotiations fail. Moreover, if the June 30th deadline is not met, they would have no choice except for going forward with such strict action.

This is not the first time the US has imposed sanctions on Iran , where the Menendez-Kirk sanctions bill was introduced in December 2013 for the same purpose, but did not come up for vote in the Senate when it was controlled by President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats. The White House insisted its passage could endanger international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, for which it did not push these sanctions too much.

The United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China reached a preliminary agreement with Iran in 2013 for it to suspend its sensitive nuclear activity in return for easing some economic sanctions. However, all sides failed to meet a self-imposed deadline for a second time in December and extended the preliminary accord by seven months. This callous attitude amongst countries angered the US lawmakers where they demanded President Obama to be more coercive with the Iranian regime.

The Obama administration has still qualms about these sanctions, calling them a disruption to a possible good outcome, regarding international relations. Senator Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, however has rejected the administrations claim by saying that he has no faith in Obama’s ability to negotiate a deal that would stop the Iranian regime from developing nuclear weapons. For him imposing these additional sanctions is the only way to make sure Iran does not use its nuclear assets in anyway, that would cause harm or be a threat. He even agreed to the possibility of imposing penalties on the Iranian regime, if they continued to pursue nuclear arms.

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey is the most prominent member on the committee, where he has declared to take harsh steps against the regime, if they refused to cooperate. Supporters of Iran sanctions in the U.S. Senate have disclosed a popular bill, one aimed at gaining enough votes to override a presidential veto. Their long-awaited bill was made public on Friday but has not been formally introduced in the Senate, where it would gradually impose sanctions against Iran , by July 1, if no final deal is reached in the talks between Tehran and the P5+1 group, consisting of United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.