Iran Sanctions Bill Pits Obama Against Israel Hardliners

Logos courtesy of AIPAC and J Street

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Yesterday morning, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, a bill that would cripple Iran’s ability to import refined oil products. The timing, on the heels of a J Street conference of pro-peace religious and political leaders in Washington, was conspicuous. The move could be a veiled political kick in the ribs to J Street, a young lobbying upstart that has launched a clear challenge to AIPAC’s hegemony in Washington.

The fight between the groups grew more contentious earlier this month after prominent officials, including Israel’s ambassador to the US Michael Oren and New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, withdrew their support for the J Street conference after initially saying they would attend.

Critics of the disputed bill worry that imposing sanctions before Obama pursues all diplomatic avenues could force the administration’s hand. In fact, as Robert Dreyfuss notes in his article on the evolving Israel lobby for our September/October issue, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman stated in May that he had “no intention of moving this bill through the legislative process” before Obama completed his diplomatic overtures. But Berman reintroduced the legislation because diplomacy proved too slow for the California Democrat.

The National Iranian American Council, a group that aligns itself with J Street, has criticized the bill for undermining the president’s peace-seeking agenda. In an October 22 letter cosigned by 10 peace-advocacy organizations, NIAC urged Berman to reconsider the bill, as it “ties the President’s hands by giving him minimal discretion to refrain from imposing sweeping sanctions—even if Iran makes important concessions.”

“Now is a time when we need to be building up trust and this is a step in the wrong direction,” Patrick Disney, NIAC’s acting policy director, tells me, noting that Iran has already made concessions while negotiating with President Obama. “Mistrust is our biggest enemy, and if we believe that Iran isn’t negotiating in good faith, we won’t get anything out of this. The same is true if Iran doesn’t believe the United States is negotiating in good faith.”

There’s no doubt the sanctions bill will clear both chambers of Congress; three-quarters of the House and Senate were cosponsors, according to an AIPAC press release applauding its passage in committee. But Obama has been non-committal as to whether he will sign the bill when it reaches his desk. It’s shaping up to be ground zero in the next scuffle between the president and DC’s hard-line Israel lobby.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate