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How to Get a Better Deal with Iran

(Foreign Policy) Mark Dubowitz - The Iran nuclear deal is a ticking time bomb. Its key provisions sunset too quickly, and it grants Iran too much leverage to engage in nuclear blackmail. Congress needs to do what it has done dozens of times in the past including during the Cold War in requiring changes to key U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements: Demand a better deal. Congress has required amendments to more than 200 treaties before receiving Senate consent. During the Cold War, Democratic senators like Henry Jackson withstood pressure from Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger who insisted that the deals they negotiated go unchanged. This all happened at a time when Moscow had thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles aimed at America. The U.S. will never again have the kind of powerful secondary sanctions leverage that it has today. Congress now has an opportunity to ensure that we maintain and use that power to defuse the ticking time bomb by making critical amendments to the Iran deal that lower the risk of a future war. The writer is executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2015-08-20 00:00:00
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