What Will Happen If the Senate Votes Against the Nuclear Agreement?

The proposal for the nuclear agreement in the Islamic Parliament before the U.S. Senate vote, presented by Abbas Araqchi, a senior representative of the Islamic Republic in nuclear negotiations, indicates Tehran's concern over the consequences of a negative vote from Congress regarding the July 14 Vienna agreement and the complications in the process of lifting sanctions before their gradual implementation. U.S. President Barack Obama, who has made the nuclear agreement with Tehran a matter of prestige, has stated that due to uncertainty about a positive Senate vote, the Vienna agreement is not a treaty and can be implemented without Senate approval; a point that Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, emphasized on Thursday. The U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives will have until December 15 to announce their votes on the agreement. It is expected that the House of Representatives, which has a Republican majority, will vote negatively on the nuclear agreement with Tehran. However, the main competition is between the Obama administration and the opponents of the proposal in the U.S. Senate, which also has a Republican majority. According to the rights granted to the president by the U.S. Constitution, if the Senate's vote on a resolution is less than two-thirds of its members, the president can veto the Senate's decision and nullify the resolution. Obama needs 34 votes from Democratic senators and 146 votes from the House of Representatives to use his veto, while he has only received support from 12 senators of his party so far. The opposition from Chuck Schumer, one of the most influential Democratic senators, to the Vienna agreement has somewhat paved the way for a negative vote from more Democratic representatives, while the support from other Democratic senators, including Kirsten Gillibrand – another senator from New York, has encouraged the administration to secure enough votes for a veto in the Senate. The Obama administration is determined to implement the Vienna nuclear agreement with Iran and register it as a foreign policy victory. To implement the provisions of the agreement, despite emphasizing that the Vienna agreement is not a treaty, according to a legal resolution from April 14, the Senate is obliged to present the matter in detail before implementation and seek the votes of senators (while maintaining the veto right for the president). Opponents of the agreement, the majority of whom belong to the Republican Party, justify their opposition to the Vienna agreement by claiming that the Islamic Republic will move towards a nuclear bomb after a ten-year forced halt; the secret agreement with the agency makes it difficult to review the past and current nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic; and the release of $100 billion in frozen Iranian assets will open the Islamic Republic's hands to further assist armed groups and increase military interventions in the region. Alongside this group is the Israeli government and the lobbying arm 'AIPAC' (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which has been trying to garner more opposition to the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic through contacts with the media and representatives of both legislative bodies in the U.S. over the past months. Over the past two weeks, most internal polls in the U.S. indicate a decrease in public support for the Vienna nuclear agreement. The vulnerable point for the Obama administration in justifying engagement with the Islamic Republic is the critical image of the Islamic Republic in the minds of the American public and the Tehran government's record on human rights violations, political prisoners, accusations of supporting terrorism, chanting 'Death to America' and 'Wipe Israel off the map' in Tehran, and imprisoning American citizens. Supporters of the Islamic Republic have also long equipped a group to lobby in Congress and align the media and public opinion in the U.S. With the current exhausting efforts of supporters and opponents of the agreement, reaching some form of consensus between them seems unlikely. Thus, it is very likely that the Vienna agreement in its current form will be put to a vote by representatives and will fail to gain the support of Congress members. Currently, obtaining two-thirds of the opposing votes from senators and circumventing Obama's veto right and completely defeating the agreement is largely out of reach for opponents but not unattainable. On the other hand, obtaining Congress's approval for the Vienna agreement also does not seem feasible for the Obama administration. Thus, with the failure of the proposal by a relative majority in Congress, although the nuclear agreement will lose its legal validity in the U.S. (even with the Security Council resolution), parts of it will still be operational for the Obama administration. The scope and extent of implementing these parts are directly related to the alignment of European society with the U.S. government, just as the unilateral sanctions of January 2012, which made negotiations possible, were implemented with the participation of the U.S. and Europe. Due to the major exclusion of the U.S. from the sanctions lifting regime, large international companies, especially oil companies and major banks that have business relations with the U.S., will avoid entering the Iranian market; a situation that, in any case, due to the inclusion of the sanctions snapback clause after 65 days, in the event of Iran's violation of the agreement, will delay their entry into the Iranian market. The U.S. Congress is gradually approving new unilateral sanctions to limit and condition the sanctions lifting regime against Iran. The tug-of-war between Congress and the U.S. government over engagement or continued sanctions against the Islamic Republic will intensify during the presidential election competition and will continue until the determination of the next occupant of the White House. The ambiguous and disordered situation of sanctions against Iran will be influenced by regional developments and especially the Islamic Republic's decision to remain loyal to the Vienna agreement or return to the conditions before the temporary agreement of November 24; a situation that opponents of the nuclear agreement and military personnel in Iran will welcome.