WASHINGTON – The U.S. needs to remain tough on Iran and wary of lifting sanctions despite a friendly phone call between President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, according to both a top state department official and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rouhani, who is seen as a political moderate, was elected president in June.
Committee chairman Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., made it clear lthat negotiations on sanctions need to proceed, even if the U.S. government is partially shut down.
“A government shutdown does not mean a shutdown of America’s interests abroad,” Menendez said.
State Department sanctions on Iran include banning the country from participating in any activities related to ballistic missiles, tightening the arms embargo and not exporting goods to the Middle Eastern country.
“The fact is that the sanctions have worked. The question is, is Iran ready to turn rhetoric into action?” Menendez said. He said that, despite a friendly call to Rouhani, the U.S. is not in a rush to a friendship with the Middle Eastern nation.
“The questions for Iran and their new president Rouhani are: Should we be cautiously hopeful? How do we test Iranian intentions? We must keep the pressure on them.” Menendez said.
While the lawmakers were gathered to discuss national security from an international standpoint, the elephant in the room, the shutdown, was addressed often.
“Our greatest threat to America is ourselves in our inability to fix our own fiscal matters,” said Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the committee.
Wendy Sherman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, testified before the committee that while the United States should be optimistic on future relations, no rash decisions should be made.
“His words, while welcome, are not enough. But we must enter this period with our eyes wide open. But we must remain steadfast. Like Secretary (John) Kerry said, ‘No deal is not better than a bad deal,” Sherman said.
Sherman agreed with Menendez that the sanctions should stay in place, for now.
“The fundamental sanctions should not go away anything soon. Every single day our intelligence committee is taking a look at where Iran is in a variety of matters,” Sherman said.
For Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, nothing Sherman could say about remaining cautiously optimistic could convince him that Rouhani may have good intentions.
“There is nothing that can be said to convince me they are serious,” Risch said.
“Rouhani has indicated that he has used this kind of tactic in the past, of pretending to make amends. We’re smarter than this.”
Sherman urged the senators to hold off on having a strong position one way or the other until after nuclear negotiations on Iran scheduled to start Oct. 15 in Geneva with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and European leaders.
“These talks will show substantive and verifiable steps they can take to show that there is truth to their statements,” Sherman said.
“No one piece of legislative is going to solve such a complex issue.”
