Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee recently agreed with Senator Robert Menendez that waiting six months to reactivate Iran sanctions will be too late. “If we don’t do Menendez-Kirk, you’ll have to do something more radical [later on].”
Corker made it clear in his opening statement at the latest Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that Congress is still looking for ways to stiffen the administration’s spine.
At that hearing, sanctions guru Mark Dubowitz explained, “I think that the legislation had as its intent, to send a credible threat to international markets that it is premature to go back into Iran, and that if Iran does not satisfy the interim conditions, if it cheats on the [interim deal], if it fires off long-range ballistic missiles, if it launches terrorist attacks against America, that all the sanctions relief would be gone and new sanctions would be imposed on Iran.” In blocking a sanctions vote, the White House and Reid give the Iranians time to recover economically while they pursue advanced research on centrifuges and continue ballistic weapons development.