Obama, Congress Disagree Over Which Iran Sanctions Are ‘Nuclear-Related’

As the Iran nuclear deal nears its final stages, the US requirement to roll back “nuclear-related” sanctions is setting the stage for another battle between the Obama Administration and Congressional hawks, who disagree over which of their many, many sanctions against Iran are actually “nuclear-related.”

Years of new rounds of sanctions have come and gone, and whenever Congress passed a new round of sanctions they included a long litany of grievances real and imagined as their justification. Iran’s nuclear program was often mentioned, but so far umpteen other things.

Iran is expecting many of the sanctions to be eased, and the White House is expected to go along with at least some of this, while Congress is suddenly arguing that there were almost no sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program to begin with, and everything is based on its war of words with Israel, or funding for Hezbollah, etc.

Trying to split the difference, the administration is saying they’re going to suspend “some non-nuclear sanctions” as part of the deal, which is just fueling more Congressional opposition to the deal, and is likely to add to the inevitable battle over getting Congress to sign off on the final pact.