Expert: Obama to veto new Iran sanctions

President Obama will “very likely” veto any bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran, according to a former senior member of his Iran nuclear negotiations team. 

“If the Congress passes a new sanctions bill that the administration considers damaging to prospects for negotiations, President Obama is very likely to veto it,” wrote Robert Einhorn, former State Department adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, in the National Interest on Wednesday.

“Senior administration officials would then go into overdrive in finding the 34 Senate votes necessary to sustain the veto,” wrote Einhorn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 

{mosads}Einhorn predicted that some Democrats will vote to override the veto, but it is “likely that the administration will have the votes to sustain the veto and prevent legislation potentially damaging to the negotiations from being enacted.”

“While the Republican-controlled Congress will undoubtedly give the administration a tough time, it is likely that President Obama will be able, without legislative interference, to continue negotiating an agreement that he believes is in the U.S. interest,” Einhorn wrote. 

Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) are preparing to introduce a new bill that would impose sanctions on Iran if it walks away from international negotiations to limit its nuclear program, or if it violates any agreement reached by a June 30 deadline. 

The senators completed the proposed legislation this week, and plan to introduce the bill before a deal is reached, Bloomberg reported. The Obama administration opposes the bill, and any legislation that could scuttle a deal with Iran to prevent its development of a nuclear weapon. 

House members overwhelmingly passed an earlier version of the bill in 2013, but a bill in the Senate was held up by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), out of deference to the White House. 

The president pledged in his 2014 State of the Union address to veto any Iran sanctions bill that Congress sent to him.

New Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has promised to bring the legislation, which has the backing of a majority of senators, for a vote this year. 

Earlier this week, the White House reiterated its “strong opposition to additional sanctions legislation that could derail the negotiations and isolate the United States from our international coalition.” 

While Einhorn thinks sanctions legislation is unnecessary, he has supported Congress authorizing military force against Iran if it violates any future agreement — a more extreme position. 

“The Congress should take legislative action to give the president prior authorization to use military force in the event of clear evidence that Iran has taken steps to abandon the agreement and move toward producing nuclear weapons,” he wrote in an Brookings paper in March. 

“Congressional action to give the president prior authorization could be a useful way of enhancing the credibility of the U.S. determination — by any means necessary — to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” he wrote.