As Sanders Demands End to Iran Sanctions to Save Lives Amid Coronavirus Pandemic, Biden Says

[karynnj]

22. Obama had many sanctions that he left in place even as the nuclear deal was reached

Obama had a long press conference a few days after the deal was made where he outlined which sanctions were raised - sanctions that were enacted because of the nuclear program - and which would remain due to other actions by Iran. There were also several Kerry statements that said the very same thing. In fact, when Iran was shown to be supplying Hezbollah with weapons AFTER THE NUCLEAR DEAL new sanctions were added.

Obviously, Trump should have stayed in the agreement and not restored the sanctions due to the nuclear program. The problem is that after the US left the deal and Iran was hurt more and more by the US sanctions, they too left the deal and are now moving towards a nuclear bomb. On this, as on many things, Trump has made the world less safe.

Here, Common Dreams is playing with the perceived distance between the Biden answer to a question on TV and a Bernie Sanders tweet - ignoring that that makes a difference. Biden has said that he would work to return to the nuclear deal as President - sometimes noting that to some degree getting Iran to trust the US, which was a roadblock in 2015, is now harder.

Note that Sanders does not specify which sanctions he wants removed - a comment that could be interpreted as all of them. It might be good if some Democrat on the SFRC - maybe Chris Murphy - would write a resolution that facilitates medical equipment and supplies being sent to any country waiving any sanctions that would apply. As a compliment, add to that a PEPFAR like package to call for helping countries without resources. (Among other things, PEPFAR, which came out of a Biden/Lugar SFRC bill worked against AIDS in Africa.) The latter might be difficult to pass until the US itself starts to respond better, but as long as this is anywhere -- it is a problem everywhere. (I think INTENTIONALLY not naming countries on the former would be defining this as potentially a long standing humanitarian rule. Consider that the sanctions on Iraq from 1991 - at least 2003 led to Iraq not being able to get components needed for their water treatment plants. )

It would be great if Biden (and Kerry) used their connections to their former committee to push for something like this that Biden could then strongly endorse.

I trust Biden, who was in Obama national security meetings when people like John Kerry and Wendy Sherman were negotiating that deal to - like Obama, who spent a lot of political capital, to negotiate with Iran and to accept the deal that Kerry was able to get. The Susan Rice book has some discussion of the NSC side of that effort. What comes through is how high they set the bar for a deal they would accept and how hard Kerry worked to achieve it.

In reality, the Congress would not pass a resolution similar to Sanders' statement - even if he carefully spelled out which sanctions he was speaking about and I don't think they can compel the President to make the changes. At this point, their statements are more about what they would do in January 2021 if they became President. In reality, NEITHER man has laid out exactly what they would do. In reality, both would as Biden states, not make a decision without knowing all the intelligence and having a NS team look at the options and create a plan that could be ready in January 2021. (The nominee gets the national security briefings. I don't know who else on their team is allowed to as well, but I assume it may include some NS advisers.)