U.S. lawmakers this week will consider three Republican-backed measures targeting the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran, Reuters reported.
One bill would impose new sanctions on Iran over any sponsorship of terrorism or human rights violations. Another would bar the purchase from Iran of “heavy water,” a non-radioactive byproduct from making nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.
The third would block Iran’s access to the U.S. financial system, including the use of the dollar, according to the news agency.
Republican lawmakers, who control the House of Representatives and Senate and unanimously opposed the nuclear deal announced last July 14, have said the measures are necessary to send Iran a strong message that it will face consequences if it violates international agreements.
The deal between Iran and the West was implemented at the beginning of this year, but later reports indicated that the Obama administration is considering easing financial restrictions that prohibit American dollars from being used in transactions with Iran.
That plan sparked anger among lawmakers opposed to the nuclear deal with Iran.
Many Republicans, joined by several Democrats, have been especially concerned by Iran’s actions since the deal was officially implemented in January, including its test-firing of ballistic missiles in March, noted Reuters.
In one of those tests, the Iranian regime fired a number of ballistic missiles in tests across the country. The words “annihilate Israel” were reportedly written on the missiles, and Iranian officials claimed the missile systems being developed were needed “to confront the Zionist entity” and to ensure “its collapse”.
“It makes sense to do all we can to check this very dangerous Iranian activity,” Republican Representative Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Rules Committee on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Thanks in part to the nuclear agreement, Iran has begun to rejoin global politics and economics after more than three decades of isolation. Business and political leaders are visiting the country, which is also hosting trade conferences.
In his first report on the deal, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Iran’s ballistic missile launches “are not consistent with the constructive spirit” of the nuclear deal. He said it was up to the UN Security Council to decide if the launches violated the resolution backing the agreement.
Iran rejected Ban’s report as “unrealistic” and urged him to issue “a fair report … in which he also mentions America is not fulfilling its commitments under the deal.”
Republicans worry that President Barack Obama is so eager to preserve the pact as a legacy that his administration will give Tehran too much leeway before he leaves office in January.
The White House issued a threat to veto all three bills, saying they would affect the continued viability of the nuclear agreement.
The deal “is critical to ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program is and will remain exclusively peaceful, which is profoundly in the national security interest of the United States and the international community,” it said in a statement quoted by Reuters.
The bills are not expected to win enough votes to advance in the Senate, even if they pass the House. And if they did pass the Senate, they would lack enough support to override a veto, the news agency noted.
