Obama marks anniversary of nuke deal; GOP aims to undermine

Some opponents in Congress appear to be waiting for Obama to leave office to pounce with new legislation, but others are not: a House vote on several pieces of Iran-related legislation is conspicuously scheduled for the one-year anniversary Thursday.

But for now, the seven-nation nuclear pact is holding.

Critics claimed, incorrectly, that Iran would get $150 billion; even a more accurate $50 billion has not yet flowed into Iranian coffers. Lew insists the deal, meant to give Iran some economic relief in exchange for curbing its nuclear program, is working.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday said that if the world powers backing the Iran nuclear deal don’t live up to their end of the agreement, the Islamic Republic could reinstate nuclear activities and elements that were terminated as part of the deal, the Associated Press (AP) reports. Due to a compromise reached in the negotiations, missile activities are not covered in the JCPOA and Security Council resolution 2231 simply “calls upon” but does not legally require Iran to cease those activities (as did the U.N. Security Council resolutions replaced by 2231).

But the uncertainty over whether the Iran deal will hold together has not diminished. The P5 had enormous economic and political leverage, and they squandered that leverage.

The historic Iran deal signed a year ago has succeeded in rolling back Tehran’s nuclear programme and avoiding further conflict, US President Barack Obama said today.

IAEA chairman Yukia Amano admitted in March that the terms of the nuclear deal limited the amount and types of information that the agency could publicly report.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the Iran talks in Vienna, Austria July 14, 2015.

Kerry added that “nobody pretends that some of the challenges we have with Iran have somehow been wiped away”.

The Countering Iranian Threats Act of 2016 would renew existing legislation on sanctions should Iran violate the nuclear deal, while also imposing new penalties for its ballistic missile program.

“This isn’t a serious bill”, Engel said of the sanctions measure. As reported by The Algemeiner, earlier in July, a senior Iranian military commander threatened that tens of thousands of missiles located across the Middle East – 100,000 in Lebanon alone – are ready to strike the Jewish state at a moment’s notice. So far, however, there are no clear indications that the JCPOA has contributed either to more moderate or more provocative behavior.

The glut of Iranian oil saw global prices plummet to below $30 a barrel in January this year, though that appears to have risen again to roughly $45 a barrel. Both Tehran and Hezbollah have denied being responsible for the attacks. His expected rival, Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, supports it. He said that when the deal was being negotiated, Iranians asked for tangible guarantees that foreign financial institutions would reenter the Iranian market and gross domestic product would increase.

The measures would expand existing sanctions, hinder Iran’s worldwide financial transactions and prevent the United States from procuring Iran’s heavy water.