Iran Nuclear

The White House aggressively struck back Friday after Sen. Charles E. Schumer announced his opposition to President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, suggesting the New York Democrat could lose support to become ­party leader in the Senate in 2016 if he helps block the accord.

The White House and its allies expressed confidence that Schumer’s opposition would not be enough to derail the Iran deal.

But both sides acknowledged that the debate is now headed into a period of uncertainty

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday he "wouldn't be surprised" if Senate Democrats take Schumer's decision into account when deciding whether to name him their next leader.

"This has no effect. Last time I checked, former Obama aides and/or outside groups don't really have a vote within the Democratic caucus," said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who spent six years working for Reid.And a current Senate Democratic aide did not foresee problems for Schumer when it comes to the leadership post."I would say it's more short-term frustration, but I think it will have passed by the time this actually comes up," the aide said.So far, no senator has publicly called for any change to the current leadership succession plan. A source close to Schumer noted that groups like MoveOn have long-opposed him but did not prevent him from winning the backing of everyone in the caucus when Reid announced his departure."His decision on the agreement is not going to surprise any of his colleagues," the aide said.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said Friday that President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran was “not black and white,” and she did not know if she would vote for it.Mrs. Wasserman Schultz’s refusal to commit to the deal challenged Mr. Obama’s assertion that lawmakers face a stark choice between the deal or war. A day earlier, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat poised to lead Senate Democrats in 2017, announced he would not support it.“This is not black and white. It’s not a no-brainer,” Mrs. Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat, said on CNN’s “New Day.”

I have decided I must oppose the agreement and will vote yes on a motion of disapproval.”

With his decision, he paves the way for other Democrats on the fence to join Republicans in showing their disapproval.

As if on cue, Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was widely expected to oppose the deal, announced his opposition Thursday night.

Some Democrats have joined in the fray, exposing a potentially serious vulnerability as the Obama administration looks to secure enough votes in each chamber to sustain any presidential veto of a resolution to kill the agreement.“Every time I get more information it raises other questions,” Sen. Ben Cardin (Md.), the Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, told reporters after the meeting. “It doesn’t mean we have to see everything in the documents, but I think there are provisions in the document that relate to the takeaway of the review of the [possible military dimensions] that would be useful.”“I was not given any assurance at all today that we could get these documents because of the nature of the agreements of the IAEA.”

American Jewish Committee (AJC) Executive Director David Harris said in a statement that his organization had “engaged in a very intensive, open-minded, and thorough process of external consultations and internal deliberations, involving many lay and staff leaders” but ultimately “concluded overwhelmingly that we must oppose this deal.” “Much as we respect those in the P5+1, led by the United States, who painstakingly negotiated the agreement over the span of years, and who confronted one challenge after another with Iran and also, it should be noted, had to manage the complex interaction within the P5+1 itself, there are too many risks, concerns, and ambiguities for us to lend our support,” said Harris.

“By abandoning the earlier negotiating posture of dismantling sanctions in exchange for Iranian dismantlement of its nuclear infrastructure, and instead replacing it with what is essentially a temporary freeze on its program, the P5+1 has indeed validated Iran's future status as a nuclear threshold state, a point that President Obama himself acknowledged in a media interview,” he continued. “Given the nature of the Iranian regime and its defining ideology, AJC cannot accept this prospect,” stated Harris. “It is too ominous, too precedent-setting, and too likely to trigger a response from Iran's understandably anxious neighbors who may seek nuclear-weapons capacity themselves, as well as, more immediately and still more certainly, advanced conventional arms, adding an entirely new level of menace to the most volatile and arms-laden region in the world. Surely, this cannot be in America's long-term security interests.” “We understand that opposing this deal raises important questions about the future that no one can answer today with certainty, much as we believe that, faced with strong American leadership, Iran would find it in its own best interests to return to the negotiating table sooner or later. But we know with greater certainty that this deal raises still more ominous questions about the future,” he added, calling on members of Congress to object to the deal as well.

The U.S. intelligence community has informed Congress of evidence that Iran was sanitizing its suspected nuclear military site at Parchin, in broad daylight, days after agreeing to a nuclear deal with world powers.

the U.S. intelligence community concluded with high confidence that the Iranian government was working to clean up the site ahead of planned inspections by the IAEA.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed lawmakers about the evidence Monday, three U.S. senators said.

"He said military action by the United States against Iran's nuclear facilities is not going to result in Iran deciding to have a full-fledged war with the United States," Rosenbaum, of the National Jewish Democratic Council, quoted Obama as telling the forum. "'You'll see more support for terrorism. You'll see Hezbollah rockets falling on Tel Aviv.' This is what he said would happen if the U.S. had a military strike on Iran," Rosenbaum said, referring to the Iranian-backed Lebanese guerrilla group and its long-range missile arsenal.

Mr. Obama, who campaigned for the presidency in 2008 promising to end wars in the Middle East, will use the speech to frame Congress’s choice as the most consequential foreign policy decision since the vote to go to war in Iraq, and he will say the deal’s opponents are the same people who supported that military conflict.

his team has been instructed to make the president and other senior administration officials available to any skeptic with an unanswered question or concern about the deal.

three closely watched Democratic senators — Barbara Boxer of California, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Bill Nelson of Florida — declared their backing

He has articulated several big goals he wants to reach before the next president takes office: to put the United States and its allies “on track to defeat” the Islamic State; to “have jump-started a process to resolve the civil war in Syria”; and to defend Israel and other U.S. allies from aggression mounted by Iran and its proxies. Here’s the problem: The last two of those goals are, as the president conceives them, directly in conflict with each other.

So how to agree with Khamenei on Syria’s future? “What are we supposed to do?” asks Hof. “Help find an alternative to [Assad] who would work with Iran to keep rockets and missiles pointed at Tel Aviv?”

Lacking reliable sea access to Lebanon, Iran needs control over the Damascus airport and the border between Syria and Lebanon to ensure Hezbollah’s resupply. That’s why, as it loses ground to rebels in the north and south, the Assad regime’s army — itself now largely an Iranian proxy — has begun to concentrate on defending a narrow strip of territory between Damascus and the border.

Faute de mieux. That means "for want of something better" in Secretary of State John Kerry's second language. It's also the best case made by its journalistic defenders for approval of the nuclear weapons deal Kerry negotiated with Iran.

It's a measure of the weakness of the deal that such a grudging argument is needed to rally such an unimpressive proportion of members of Congress.

The New York Times's Thomas Friedman, generally a supporter of Barack Obama's policies, makes the faute de mieux argument explicitly. But he also adds some conditions — er, recommendations — to his endorsement that aren't likely to be congenial to the president. Put a tough military man in charge of seeking enforcement. Get Congress to pass an Authorization for Use of Military Force in case Iran cheats. Reach out to the Iranian people who, all indicators suggest, don't like the mullahs' regime. And in the Middle East don't tilt too far toward either Iran's Shia or the Saudis' and others' Sunni allies.

Americans overwhelmingly oppose the Iran nuclear agreement made by the United States and other world powers, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday. By a 57-28 margin, voters reject the deal the White House has pushed on Congress the past few weeks.

I have read through the 159 page Iran deal, considered analysis from a wide variety of foreign policy experts on the pros and cons of this agreement and reviewed the deal's classified annexes. The more I read, the more my concern grows.

Consider some of the deal's numerous problems:The period covered by the deal is way too short.

Inspections of Iranian sites will be insufficient.