Obama pushback on Iran sanctions law? Not so much

Earlier this month, Obama administration officials testified in Congress about the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which would substantively enhance the sanctions at the president’s disposal should he take the punitive route.

Opponents of the sanctions at the time made much of the officials’ emphasis on the president’s need for "flexibility," taking it as a sign that Obama was unhappy with the sanctions, which would target what sanctions advocates claim is the lifeblood of Iran’s economy, its import of refined petroleum.

I wasn’t so sure: It sounded more like the nuanced back and forth between executive branch and legislative branch officials over how much leeway the bill should include for the president to waive its provisions. It sounded to me as if the administration officials were otherwise okay with the legislation.

Additionally, U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, had held up the legislation, with the blessing of U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Speaker — until the end of last month, when President Obama lashed out at Iran for maintaining a second, secret uranium enrichment plant. Within a couple of days, Pelosi and Berman said they were ready to go ahead with sanctions legislation — a step I don’t think they would have taken without the wink and nod from the White House.

The legislation made it out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee today with tough strictures on the president — but this is a little beside the point, because the bill has a ways and many redrafts to go before it ends up on Obama’s desk. (And presidents always find a way to ignore foreign policy strictures — this is an executive/legislative branch tension as old as the Republic.)

More to the point was the State Department’s reaction to today’s "mark-up": It was not at all hostile — quite the contrary. From the back and forth in today’s briefing between reporters and Ian Kelly, the spokesman, it would appear as if the Obama administration sees the legislative process as convenient leverage as it pursues the diplomatic track with Iran. (The P 5 +1 are the major powers negotiating with Iran, the five permanent, veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council — Russia, China, Britain, France, and the United States — and Germany.)

MR. KELLY: Well, I think all along, we’ve pursued a dual track. Right now, I think most of our energies are focused on the engagement side of it, to follow up on the P-5+1 meeting in Geneva, and waiting for a response from Iran. But all along, we – there’s also the other track, the track of pressure. And we believe that that track has to be at least planned for while we pursue the engagement track.

(snip)

I think as we look at the two sides of this – the engagement side and then the pressure side – what we prefer to do is to do this multilateral, to do this in consultation with the members of the P-5+1. We, of course, welcome the advice of Congress and are working with them as they go through their own deliberations on how to go forward in our relations with Iran. We all share the same goal, and that’s getting Iran to be more transparent about its nuclear energy program, and there’s a lot of discussions on how best to get to that end state. But like I say, I mean, right now, we’re focused on Iran providing a response to Mr. ElBaradei’s.

"Planning for the pressure track" sounds a lot to me like allowing Congress to deliberate over sanctions.

Read the whole passage (below the jump); the reporters try do draw out Kelly to find evidence of tensions with Congress, and these simply do not arise. Some of the questions are a little misleading; I’ve never heard, for instance, that the administration has explicitly opposed the sanctions because they "would hurt the Iranian people," and I spend what it seems to be my waking hours reviewing these transcripts. And also, the reporter’s demand for a formal statement is a tease, a way of keeping Kelly talking — I’ve never seen a formal executive branch statement about a committee mark-up.

And while it is true that Kelly says the administration prefers the multilateral track — as opposed to sanctions unilaterally imposed by the United States — so does Berman . This posture, expressed by Kelly, is not inconsistent with a strategy of signaling Iran that Obama is seriously contemplating sanctions by allowing the legislation to advance.

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QUESTION: Another subject. There’s a resolution moving rapidly through Congress. The Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which would seem to encourage the Administration to put sanctions on Iran’s refined petroleum imports, which I guess are a vulnerability, is this legislation something that you support, encourage this —

MR. KELLY: Well, I – yeah, I know that we’re talking to the sponsors. I know that senior officials here are talking to the appropriate members of Congress on this issue. I think Assistant Secretary Feltman in fact is testifying this afternoon. Our focus now is on the IAEA. We’re still expecting a response from Iran to the Director General’s proposal to Iran to send out their low-enriched uranium to be enriched outside Iran, and we still don’t have a response. We’ve seen press reports that the response may come tomorrow, but there’s been no official response yet in Vienna.

QUESTION: So could you expand on the general helpfulness, or lack thereof, of this particular piece of legislation? Does this help your diplomatic efforts or not so much?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think all along, we’ve pursued a dual track. Right now, I think most of our energies are focused on the engagement side of it, to follow up on the P-5+1 meeting in Geneva, and waiting for a response from Iran. But all along, we – there’s also the other track, the track of pressure. And we believe that that track has to be at least planned for while we pursue the engagement track.

QUESTION: All right. But as of – up until now, you’ve specifically avoided sanctions on refined petroleum, because you thought that it would hurt the Iranian people and therefore hurt your efforts to engage Iran. So, helpful or not so helpful?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think as we look at the two sides of this – the engagement side and then the pressure side – what we prefer to do is to do this multilateral, to do this in consultation with the members of the P-5+1. We, of course, welcome the advice of Congress and are working with them as they go through their own deliberations on how to go forward in our relations with Iran. We all share the same goal, and that’s getting Iran to be more transparent about its nuclear energy program, and there’s a lot of discussions on how best to get to that end state. But like I say, I mean, right now, we’re focused on Iran providing a response to Mr. ElBaradei’s.

QUESTION: So it sounds like you don’t – if you prefer to do it multilaterally, then it sounds like you don’t think it’s a good idea.

MR. KELLY: Right now, we’re looking at – on the engagement side, again, on a response to ElBaradei’s proposal, and then we welcome Congress and their advice on how to pursue the other track, the pressure track. But like I say, we’d prefer this be done in a multilateral fashion. These kinds of methods of pressure, of course, are a lot more effective if they’re done in a multilateral fashion.

QUESTION: Ian, let me try to get some clarity here, because I don’t – it’s not very clear if you have a position at all. This legislation and similar – this bill and a similar legislation in the Senate only – it just gives the President the authority to impose these sanctions. It doesn’t actually impose them themselves. And as you said, you think that while engagement is pursued, you have to plan for the second track —

MR. KELLY: Right.

QUESTION: – the punitive track. So what’s wrong with this? What’s wrong with getting the authority to do this, even if you – I mean, you might never use it.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: But it gives you an additional tool now.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I – well, I think that the priority has to be on getting an answer from Iran.

QUESTION: So you don’t – so the Administration opposes this?

MR. KELLY: No, I’m not saying that we’re opposing it. I mean, there’s nothing —

QUESTION: Are you neutral?

MR. KELLY: There’s nothing for us to oppose at this point. There’s no – there’s no bill, there’s nothing specific.

QUESTION: It just came out of the – it just came back – just cleared Committee.

MR. KELLY: Well, it hasn’t – yeah, but it hasn’t been enacted.

QUESTION: So there won’t be any statement – formal statement of Administration policy on this?

MR. KELLY: I’m not saying there will or there won’t be. But there – right now, our focus is on Vienna.

QUESTION: Well, that’s not true.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: You just said that Jeff Feltman is up there on the Hill testifying this afternoon.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Well, the Hill —

MR. KELLY: Laying out our Iran policy.

QUESTION: The Hill – the only Vienna the Hill is close to is Vienna, Virginia. So I mean, what’s he doing up there?

MR. KELLY: He’s up there laying out our Middle East policy, including our policy toward Iran.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Thank you.