Sabotaging diplomacy? What are they thinking?

Yesterday, thirteen Senate Democrats joined thirteen Republicans and began circulating a new Iran sanctions bill with the potential to derail the Iran nuclear talks.  This action came in spite of requests from the White House that Senators hold off on any new Iran legislation while the nuclear talks are in progress.  I'm ashamed to say that New Jersey's own senior senator. Robert Menendez, is one of the leading supporters of the proposal and introduced it with Republican Mark Kirk.

These thirteen Democrats should know better.  They have put themselves in the camp of conservative hardliners in Iran and the Netanyahu government in Israel -  about the only other people on the planet against the historic interim agreement achieved by the G3+3 with Iran just last month. 

The influence of the lobbying group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), strong supporters of the right-wing Netanyahu, is all over this.   Many, if not most, of the Senators pushing the legislation have received significant contributions from pro-Israel groups, who are heavily influenced by AIPAC.  Menendez  received more than $340,000 in campaign contributions in the six-year period ending December 31, 2012.  Mark Kirk, the leading Republican proponent of the current legislation, received more than $925,000.  All told, the 26 Senators received nearly $5,000,000 from pro- Israel groups. [maplight.org]

The proposed bill sets strong, and, likely illegal, conditions for a final agreement.  "Among those conditions is a provision that only allows Obama to waive new sanctions, even after a final deal has been struck, if that deal bars Iran from enriching any new uranium whatsoever."  [Daily Kos quoting Foreignpolicy.com, Dec.19]  As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes such as energy and medicine.  Denying them this right to the peaceful use of nuclear power is a clear violation of the meaning of the treaty.  This is especially specious when we consider that Israel is a non-signatory to the NNPT and has 80 nuclear weapons sitting 1000 km or so from Iran's borders.  This condition all but guarantees that no lasting détente will ever be reached with Iran.

But that isn't the worst part of this bill.  The bill includes a non-binding provision that states that if Israel takes "military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapons program", the United States should support it.  Since when does the United States outsource its military and foreign policy to a foreign power? 

As Andrew Sullivan writes on The Dish website:

As usual, English is the first casualty in propaganda. Any act of “self-defense” against a mere “program” is not an act of legitimate self-defense. In international law, you are allowed to defend yourself if attacked; you do not have a right to attack another country just because you don’t like one of their military programs (which the Iranian regime has, in any case, sworn it would never use). That would be a license to shred international law and any concept of just warfare. For the US Senate to proactively bless future aggressive military action by a foreign government when it is not justified by self-defense is an appalling new low in the Israeli government’s grip on the US Congress.

If the Senate goes ahead and approves the bill when it comes to the floor next year, President Obama will have no choice but to veto it.  If he does not, he should hand back his Nobel Peace Prize.  And the Senate should congratulate themselves for caving in to AIPAC and taking us all a step closer to war.

Other Notes
Being pro-Israel does not mean being anti-Iran diplomacy.  Americans for Peace Now is a Jewish-American organization that supports the two-state solution and works for peace between Palestinians and Israelis.  They recently circulated a petition asking Congress to allow time for the nuclear talks with Iran to succeed.  It's a shame that this group of peace activists doesn't have the influence of AIPAC on potential donors.

Update
This afternoon, Americans for Peace Now updated its petition.  You can sign the petition here and send it to your Senators. 

Links
Link to Wikipedia entry on Americans for Peace Now

Link to Wikipedia entry on AIPAC


Correction
An earlier version of this post indicated that Charles Schumer of New York introduced the bill with Mark Kirk of Illinois.  While Schumer was one of the 26 co-sponsors, it was Sen. Menendez, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair, that led the Democrats supporting the bill.