The Jerusalem Post published an article by Michael Wilner headlined "US senators newly reluctant on Iran sanctions after Obama pleads for time."
"Democratic leadership in the US Senate has grown increasingly reluctant to act on a bill that would threaten Tehran with harsh new sanctions should it fail to reach a final agreement on its nuclear program," the article reads.
"US President Barack Obama made a plea for time to explore diplomacy in his annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. The Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 still has 59 co-sponsors, including 19 Democrats, publicly supporting the bill. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has given no indication he has any plans to bring the legislation to a vote, as his party colleagues begin to openly express skepticism on its timing," Wilner writes.
"The point of the bill, as intended by its authors, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), is to hold the negotiations process to account with the specter of consequential failure: Should six months pass without a comprehensive agreement ending the nuclear impasse, the bill would automatically trigger new sanctions tools on the Islamic Republic, pending presidential approval," the author informs.
"Proponents of the bill consider it negative reinforcement for Iran to engage meaningfully in negotiations over its nuclear program with the P5+1— the US, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany. But critics of the legislation, led by the Obama administration, warn that its passage could undermine the diplomatic process, and perhaps derail it completely," the article reads.
