Last week, 10 Senate Democrats who had persistently expressed concern over President Barack Obama’s concessionary policy to Iran over its nuclear weapons program, announced via a letter to the President that they would desist from seeking to pass new legislation to reimpose sanctions in the event of a failure in nuclear talks. Under reportedly enormous pressure from the White House, the senators said that they would await the March 24 deadline for a negotiated framework for an agreement with Tehran, despite their doubts that any such agreement would be forthcoming.
This delay is a serious mistake, because one of the few things that might induce Tehran to agree to terminating its nuclear weapons program would be the certainty of renewed tough sanctions if it didn’t. Now such pressure is absent and the chances of Iran agreeing correspondingly reduced.