Opposition from US Congressional hawks to any nuclear deal with Iran gets more shrill by the moment, with open letters signed by scores of lawmakers a weekly affair nowadays and myriad bills in committee aimed at sabotaging the talks.
Both the US and Iran had a strongly anti-diplomacy set of hardliners, who were more comfortable continuing decades of acrimony, and saw the other side as not to be trusted in the talks. Iran’s hardliners remain, but you don’t hear from them so much as America’s.
Some of the Iranian MPs are warning that they’re not thrilled with the deal, but there is no real campaign among them to try to block the deal, let alone attempt to sour the negotiations with threats to the other side, as with a letter from Senate hawks earlier this month to Iran.
This may reflect the difficulty for Iranian politicians to make opposing a deal that could end economic sanctions against them a viable position to take, while US officials don’t see nearly the potential economic benefit from a deal.
It also likely reflects the lack of international pressure on the Iranian MPs, as the US Congress is being inundated by Israeli officials lobbying to get the deal killed at all costs.
