Gray continues,
The legislation as it stands would give President Obama a national security waiver on all the sanctions, and the administration is looking to boost this power with three more waiver opportunities.
In addition to the administration, there are others who oppose the new sanctions. For example, Jamal Abdi, the National Iranian American Council’s Policy Director dislikes them because they limit the “President’s flexibility at the negotiating table and undermines confidence that the U.S. can make a deal.”
Imagine that – the Iranians don’t like the new sanctions.
Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an editor at the Daily Beast, also criticized the sanctions the U.S. Senate unanimously agreed to implement as “little more than empty politicking by senators.”
On the other hand, even Israelis such as former Mossad head Efraim HaLevy, trotted out by pro-administration advocates for his refusal to endorse the idea of setting a “red line” regarding Iran’s nuclear activity and his general abhorrence of a military option, said that continuing and increasing sanctions are essential if there is to be a diplomatic solution, and that “the sanctions have not brought the end to the [Iranian nuclear weapons] program but sanctions are hurting very much.”
Meanwhile, Cong. Lamborn is hopping mad that the administration is “continuing in its historic pattern of watering down sanctions and avoiding imposing any effective means of deterring the ‘Palestinians'” from pursuing their illicit goals through illegal maneuvers. He is greatly alarmed by the weak approach of the administration.
Lamborn cautioned, “Time is starting to run out on an Iran option.”
