WASHINGTON – For the first time in many months, supporters of intensified diplomatic engagement with Iran appear to be gaining strength here.
Following last month’s surprise election of Hassan Rouhani – widely considered the most moderate of a field of six candidates – as the Islamic Republic’s next president, the possibility of a deal over Iran’s nuclear program has become more widely accepted.
“Public support in Congress for engaging Iran at the negotiating table has grown markedly since Rouhani’s election”
– Dylan Williams, J StreetThat was reflected most dramatically this week by the fact that 131 members of the hawkish, Republican-led House of Representatives – including a majority of House Democrats – signed a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to “reinvigorat(e) U.S. efforts to secure a negotiated nuclear agreement”.
The letter, whose signatories included 17 Republicans, suggested that Washington should be prepared to relax bilateral and multilateral sanctions against Iran in exchange for “significant and verifiable concessions” at the negotiating table. It also implicitly warned against adding new sanctions at such a sensitive moment.
“We must also be careful not to pre-empt this potential opportunity by engaging in actions that delegitimize the newly elected president and weaken his standing relative to hardliners within the regime who oppose his professed ‘policy of reconciliation and peace’,” the letter stated.
Remarkably, most of the signatories – who together made up nearly a third of the House’s 435 members – signed on to the letter after a particularly bellicose appearance by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a widely-viewed public-affairs television program last Sunday in which he urged Washington to increase pressure, including threats of military action, against Tehran and called Rouhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful vanguard of the Israel lobby in Washington, took no public position on the letter. However, the group, which generally promotes the policies of the Israeli government, made clear that they would prefer that lawmakers not sign it, according to knowledgeable sources.
“This is critical because it shows that there is a strong and bipartisan constituency even in the U.S. Congress, which has been one of the most inflexible elements in the U.S. government, that understands there is a historic opportunity before us and wishes to ensure that we do our utmost to explore it,” Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), told IPS.
“Letters of this kind almost never get more than 30 signatures, and this one got well over that number, including some senior members and important Republicans, as well. It tells us that things are changing,” he added.
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Heather Hurlburt, executive director of the National Security Network (NSN), echoed that assessment. “The willingness of 131 members to sign this letter reflects a bipartisan expert consensus that’s been emerging over the last eight months or so that negotiations need space and focus to succeed,” she said. “That consensus has been strengthened by the election results in Iran.”
The latest developments came as senior U.S. officials met their counterparts in the so-called P5+1 (U.S., France, Britain, Russia, China plus Germany) in Brussels in anticipation of a new round of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program that is likely to take place in September, at least one month after Rouhani takes office Aug. 4.
Created in 2006, the P5+1’s last meeting with Tehran took place in April in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The group reportedly tabled an offer to ease sanctions on Iran’s trade in gold and other precious metals and its petrochemical exports as a confidence-building measure (CBM) in exchange for Tehran’s suspending its 20-percent enrichment of uranium and transferring its existing stockpile out of the country.
U.S. officials have told reporters that Iran has not yet formally responded to the offer and that therefore Washington is not yet prepared to modify the package. At the same time, the officials said Tehran should not see it as a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposal and that if it wanted a more comprehensive deal, the P5+1 would be prepared to discuss it.
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