A lame-duck Congress and a lame-duck President are locking horns today over the question of the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, a subject which has sparked several battles between the two sides over the past year, and has both warning the other side not to try anything in the next month and a half.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest warned against any legislation by the Congress intent on undermining the deal, saying Obama would not be willing to sign anything that would undermine the deal’s implementation or the international community’s ability to enforce it.
At the same time a number of House Republicans are warning that Obama had better not take any action to try to defend the nuclear deal before he leaves office, saying Obama mustn’t refuse to sign anything, and must not offer any waivers under the deal.
Congress is pushing bills to impose new sanctions on Iran, and an attempt at a wholesale ban on all sales of civilian airliners to the nation. The Obama Administration just recently gave Airbus a waiver for airliner sales to Iran, and Boeing has a similarly-sized deal in the works.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to be more harsh than Obama about enforcement of the deal, but has backed away from talk of tearing the pact up entirely. Despite this, several Congressional hawks are still expressing hope that Trump will allow them to further undermine the international agreement.
Here is what Iran is about. Beginning in the mid-19th century Great Britain held that it needed a tier of allies or at least friendly states to the South of Czarist Russia to prevent it to penetrate into India and-later-to threaten the Anglo-Persian (eventually Anglo-Iranian) oil fields. That policy continued for the Soviet Union and then the current Russian Federation. After WW1 and even more so after WW2 Great Britain was joined and outclassed by our governments. We ousted Mossadegh and installed the Shah as our puppet. Because Iran was the kingpin in the containment of Russia the Khomeini revolution was a disaster for Great Britain and our policy.
As a businessman Trump knows very well that you do not let your competitors into your bailiwick. He holds that the agreement signed by President Obama for the US has stupidly let Russia and China into Iran which is why he is going to pull out of the agreement but not out of Iran. That, however, will not drive Russia and China out of Iran. How Trump can achieve that and restore US hegemony in Iran is totally unclear. Traditionally that has been done by offering much better terms than-in this case-Russia or China. Great Britain, France, and Germany do not count.
US-Russian animosity and tensions will not grow under Trump because of Crimea or Ukraine but because of Iran and Syria.