Why Obama Will Not Stand Against Congress on Iran?

Obama's retreat on Tuesday in the face of pressures from senators of both the Republican and Democratic parties regarding the nuclear agreement with Iran, and his agreement to give Congress a 30-day opportunity to review the final agreement and the manner of lifting sanctions, showed that maintaining working relations with lawmakers is more important for his administration than reaching a final agreement with Tehran at any cost. According to the amendment made to the writing of the Corker bill, proposed by Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, known as the 'Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015', the bill passed the Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, April 14, and will be voted on by the Senate and, if approved, by the House of Representatives in the coming weeks. Given the Republican majority in both chambers, it is expected that the bill will pass with further amendments. For the bill to become law and be implemented, the signature of the President of the United States is, of course, necessary. Until now, Obama has insisted that he would veto congressional measures aimed at imposing restrictions on reaching a final agreement with Iran. The President of the United States retains the right to veto when congressional measures have less than two-thirds of the votes of the representatives. Thus, the President of the United States has accepted that he will not have a blank check in negotiations and political dealings with Iran and will comply with Congress's demands in this regard. Although the Corker bill does not pose a serious obstacle to finalizing the nuclear understanding between the U.S. and Tehran, it may complicate negotiations in the coming weeks. The Corker bill is expected to pass the Senate and then the House of Representatives after being approved without opposition in the Foreign Relations Committee. Considering the level of support for the proposed bill in both legislative chambers, the possibility of the representatives' support reaching the two-thirds threshold is not out of the question. In such a case, the results of the negotiations and agreements of the U.S. government with the Islamic Republic over the past two years will effectively be under the control of Congress. Even if the two-thirds threshold is not reached, the Corker bill will still have relative majority support in Congress and legal standing. Thus, the next U.S. President, who will come to power in the next two years, may suspend the agreement made by the previous U.S. administration with the Iranian government under the pretext of 'reviewing' it. Therefore, the U.S. government intends to accept Congress's limited and relative participation in dealing with Iran to avoid a rare confrontation between lawmakers and the executive branch (especially during the intensification of presidential election competition) and, on the other hand, not to put reaching a moderate agreement with Iran at greater risk. The minimum loss resulting from the confrontation between Congress and the U.S. government regarding one of its foreign issues is the discrediting of the executive power of the U.S. and the White House in the field of foreign relations. Contrary to some optimistic assessments, the finalization of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the 1+5 group by the end of June, while still possible, is by no means guaranteed. With the recent retreat before Congress, Obama will not be able to lift many of the sanctions imposed against Iran without the approval of lawmakers. At the same time, Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani emphasize that the final condition for finalizing the nuclear agreement is the simultaneous lifting of sanctions, a condition that even if the U.S. government agrees to, Congress will not accept. In the coming weeks, many unforeseen developments will at least be able to delay or suspend the negotiations. Understanding this situation, Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, also considered the possibility of passing the set date at the end of June for finalizing the negotiations. The next round of talks to finalize the Lausanne understanding is scheduled to be held on May 20 at the expert level in Vienna. The noticeable support of domestic public opinion in Iran for the Lausanne nuclear understanding can be interpreted as an indirect vote of the people expressing dissatisfaction with the continuation of the costly nuclear programs of the Islamic Republic in their current form. At the same time, relying on this widespread desire to finalize the nuclear agreement, and despite the complications in the negotiation process, it is expected that the representatives of the Islamic Republic will continue to maintain their full willingness to reach a final agreement with the U.S. in the remaining weeks.