As the New START nuclear reductions treaty with Russia heads to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote Thursday morning, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is outlining his numerous concerns with the treaty.

"While I support many of the New START treaty's goals, a number of significant flaws must be addressed by the Senate prior to endorsing ratification," wrote Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in a Sept. 14 letter to SFRC committee heads John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), obtained exclusively by The Cable.

"If the New START treaty is to be in the national security interests of the United States, the Senate's resolution of advice and consent to ratification must at a minimum establish binding prohibitions against constraints on ballistic missile defense; a long term commitment to the long term modernization of the nuclear weapons complex and the nuclear triad, limitations on the authority of the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC), and assurances that future arms control negotiations with Russia address reductions in tactical nuclear weapons."

McCain has never indicated whether he will ultimately vote in favor of the treaty. In a brief interview with The Cable on Tuesday, he would only say that "serious discussions are still ongoing," referring to negotiations between Senate Republicans and the Obama administration.

Although most of McCain's issues are addressed in the latest version of the resolution of ratification put forth by Lugar, his demands in some cases seem to go further than the current language of the Lugar resolution. This suggests that McCain and other Republicans will continue to seek changes to Lugar's resolution to strengthen the language as it makes its way through the ratification process.

Republicans who are still unsatisfied by what Lugar and the administration have negotiated will have two opportunities to make changes. At Thursday's hearing, several Republican committee members are expected to offer amendments to Lugar's resolution, but those will need Democratic committee support in order to be adopted.

Non-committee Republicans will also be able to offer amendments and statements of "reservations" when the treaty comes to the Senate floor. But it is unlikely that any vote will happen before the midterm elections and, during what could be a very short lame-duck session, the appetite for debating changes to the resolution could be scarce.

Regardless, the McCain letter shows that leading Republicans, including McCain's Arizona colleague Jon Kyl, have still not completely signed on. McCain is not opposing the Lugar resolution, but he's not endorsing it either. As the endgame for START ratification takes shape, the administration still has a lot of heavy lifting to do if they want the support of leading GOP senators like John McCain.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry said today that there's not enough time to ratify the New START nuclear reductions treaty before the elections, but there should be a chance to pass the treaty when the Senate returns to Washington in November.

"I think the reality is... to push it in the next week or two would be a mistake, given the election. So let's just get it out of committee and hopefully set it up to do without any politics, without any election atmospherics, as a matter of national security when we come back in the lame-duck," Kerry said in an interview Tuesday. "That's what I'd like to see."

Kerry's comments match those of his GOP counterpart Richard Lugar (R-IN), who said Monday evening that he doesn't see any way the treaty could get the needed floor time before the Senate adjourns again in the beginning of October.

But his comments seem to contradict those of the treaty's lead negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemeoller, who said Tuesday morning that she still hoped the full Senate would act on the treaty in the next few weeks. The treaty goes into effect 60 days after both Russia and the United States ratify it, and the goal is to have it in effect by the end of the year, Gottemeoller told a group of defense reporters.

Regardless, few on Capitol Hill believe that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will spend precious floor time this month on the treaty. Even after the Senate returns following the November mid-term elections, there still might not be enough time to consider START, Kerry warned.

"If the lame duck session is a one week session, I would be surprised if anything but the most simplistic things pass. If there's a longer lame duck session, it's possible something larger and more sweeping could pass," he said.

Kerry said he needs only two days of Senate floor time, maybe three, to debate and then vote on the treaty.

He also said that he was open to supporting the resolution to be put forth by Lugar at Thursday's committee hearing, rather than the version he circulated early last week.

"Mine was put out as a discussion draft to elicit from them exactly the things that are not being talked about," Kerry said about his draft, which was first posted on The Cable. "We're working very closely together, but I'm certainly prepared to agree to a substitute [from Lugar] if it meets with our needs as well."

There was a flurry of behind-the-scenes activity going on Tuesday regarding the START treaty. Late Monday, Lugar circulated his latest draft, obtained by The Cable, as negotiations continued between the committee staff, various Senate offices, and the administration.

Treaty supporters are hoping to get as many GOP committee votes as possible and have been working hard to address the concerns of Republican senator who will vote on Thursday.

One of those GOP senators is Bob Corker (R-TN), who said Tuesday he will cosponsor the Lugar resolution on Thursday and vote in favor of the treaty at Thursday's committee session.

"I think we're moving in a very good direction," Corker told The Cable. "Based on what I know now, I certainly plan on voting it out of committee."

He predicted that when the treaty reaches the Senate floor, there will be other amendments and reservations put forth, so no final prediction could be made. But Corker said he was cautiously optimistic about the path forward.

Kerry said that when the treaty does reach the floor, senators should keep in mind that the Russian Duma is waiting to see what the Senate does before it acts on the treaty.

"President Medvedev said this to me personally, the Duma is waiting to see what happens here and how the treaty is treated in the United States," Kerry said. "That will have an impact on what they do just as their actions would have an impact on us. So I think we need to be sensitive to that."

The South Korea government on Monday released the full version of its investigation into the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, which it hopes will offer conclusive proof to a skeptical Russia that the explosion that killed 46 sailors was due to a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine.

The South Korean report (PDF), obtained by The Cable¸ is meant to put to rest the Russian argument that the Cheonan somehow ran aground in shallow waters and triggered a mine explosion, leading to its sinking. That's the version of events reportedly contained in a Russian report that has never been publicly released.

"ROKS Cheonan was sunk due to an under-water explosion caused by an attack of a CHT-02D torpedo manufactured and used by North Korea," concluded the South Korean report. "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine. There is no other plausible explanation."

The joint civilian-military commission that compiled the report included input from 73 experts from 4 different nations, including the United States. Despite its comprehensive nature, its findings were not enough to convince the U.N. Security Council to issue a Presidential Statement explicitly blaming North Korea.

The U.N. statement acknowledged that the South Korean investigation accused North Korea of being behind the attack, and then "takes note of the responses from other relevant parties, including from the DPRK, which has stated that it had nothing to do with the incident."

South Korea's full report attempted to quell any dispute by showing, among other evidence, that the investigators found parts of the North Korean torpedo (pictured above) and parts of the explosive device that ultimately sunk the ship.

"The finding of the propulsion motor of a torpedo (the smoking gun) and the detection of explosive components illustrated to the North and the international community that even the most covert of attacks will leave evidence behind," the report stated. "Most importantly, all this entails a solemn warning to the North not to engage in further military provocations. This report is a pledge that the Republic of Korea will reflect upon this incident and not let the North exercise further military provocations."

Meanwhile, Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, Special Envoy Sung Kim, and NSC Asia Director Danny Russel were in Seoul Monday for discussions on North Korea, and will continue on to Tokyo and Beijing later this week.  They met with Minister of Unification Hyun In-taek, acting Foreign Minister Shin Kak-soo, Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Wi Sung-lac, and National Security Advisor Kim Sung-hwan.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that the State Department is "looking to see how - through bilateral contacts and multilateral contacts we can advance towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

The South Korean government announced a series of sanctions against Iran on Tuesday after intensive lobbying from the Obama administration.

The new measures, which target Iran's energy and banking sectors as well as specific Iranian bad actors, follow similar moves by Japan last week. They are also in line with measures imposed by the European Union last month, though not quite as extensive as the administration had proposed to Seoul.

Regardless, the administration and members of Congress who are pushing for countries to put more pressure on Iran hailed the announcement, noting that South Korea moved forward despite the potential cost to its domestic industries.

"I know that this was not an easy or cost-free decision for the ROK government, either politically or economically. But it is precisely Seoul's willingness to shoulder rather than shirk its international responsibilities that confirms the Republic of Korea's emergence as a global leader," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, in a statement.

Japan has the third largest economy in the world, South Korea ranks as the eleventh largest, and both countries have major business interests in Iran -- especially in the energy sector. The new measures would prevent the initiation of any new joint business ventures but allow existing projects to continue.

For the administration and its allies in Congress, the South Korean and Japanese sanctions announcements reaffirm their strategy of using the U.N. Security Council resolution against Iran, which was passed on June 9, as a framework for taking additional steps aimed at convincing Iran to address the international community's concerns about its nuclear program.

The coordination is a positive sign of cooperation between Washington and its two most important East Asian allies. At the same time, Iran watchers note that Beijing stands to profit if Chinese companies move to fill the demand gap created by the South Korean and Japanese sanctions.

Lieberman is warning that if Beijing undermines the new sanctions, Congress will move to enforce sanctions against Chinese companies using authorities provided in the recent U.S. sanctions legislation.

"Chinese companies have unfortunately in the past been allowed by their government to pursue their commercial self-interest in Iran, exploiting the restraint of other countries," Lieberman said. "If this trend continues, China will isolate itself from the responsible international community in Asia and around the world."

Behind the scenes, State Department and Treasury officials had been working hard to encourage the South Korean and Japanese governments to adoptthe strongest measures possible. This effort has been led by Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, and Robert Einhorn, the State Department's special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control.

Einhorn and the NSC's Daniel Glaser traveled to Tokyo and Seoul last month, and a Congressional staff delegation visiting Seoul and Tokyo last week also was partially focused on the push for strong sanctions language.

National Economic Council chairman Larry Summers, the NSC's Tom Donilon, Asia Senior Director Jeffrey Bader, and Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell were in Beijing last weekend and the topic of Iran sanctions was also on their agenda.

The main hub of Iranian financial activity in South Korea is the Seoul branch of Bank Mellat, a Tehran-based bank that has already been targeted by both the United States and the European Union. South Korea only agreed to a 60-day suspension of Korean dealings with Bank Mellat Seoul, with a promise to reevaluate after. Washington had wanted a total freeze.

Iran watchers on Capitol Hill said the temporary suspension would have the desired effect by making it clear to investors they should not do business with Bank Mellat in Seoul.

"The fact is they are taking action against Bank Mellat and they are embedding this action within a broad framework of other actions," said one GOP Senate aide. "It's very possible that everybody and their brother is going to run for the exits... that bank is going to be kryptonite."

Levey and Einhorn have also been working hard on the recently announced new U.S. sanctions on North Korea, a topic in which both Japan and South Korea have a vital interest. Aides said that, while the two efforts weren't directly linked, there are indirect links in that Iran and North Korea are involved in some of the same illicit activities.

"There is a tie in the sense that North Korea and Iran actively cooperate on a range of illicit proliferation-related activities," said one Congressional staffer close to the issue. "That's a linkage that both the Koreans and the Japanese recognize and appreciate."

UPDATE: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) also praised the new sanctions and saw them as a message to China. He tweeted, "Korea adopted strong new sanctions on Iran today. Japan did the same last week. China should follow their good example of global leadership."

The Obama administration on Monday announced a limited expansion of the list of entities that fall under U.S. sanctions on North Korea, as well as new sanctions designed to curtail the illicit activities of Kim Jong Il's regime and keep luxury goods out of the hands of the Hermit Kingdom's elite.

The new measures are a response to the sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan as well as other recent provocations attributed to Pyongyang. Although the new measures specify just eight organizations and four individuals in North Korea, there are also new authorities the administration could use later to target other businesses and persons who aid the country's nuclear program and its involvement in arms proliferation, currency counterfeiting, money laundering, and illicit drugs.

"North Korea's government helps maintain its authority by placating privileged elites with money and perks, such as luxury goods like jewelry, luxury cars, and yachts," said Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a briefing with reporters at the Treasury Department Monday.

"The North Korean government also benefits from illicit activities including drug trafficking, counterfeiting U.S. currency, and selling counterfeit cigarettes. All of this activity makes up a crucial portion of the North Korean government's revenues. These activities are carried out by a global financial network that generates this income and procures the luxury goods for the government of North Korea."

President Obama added five organizations and three individuals to the list of targets under Executive Order 13382, which only covers those who are helping North Korea obtain weapons of mass destruction. The president also issued a new executive order that covers the regime's other illicit activities and named three organizations and one individual as targets.

One of the organizations targeted in the new executive order is the ultra secretive "Office 39" of the Korean Worker's Party, which allegedly produces methamphetamines, tries to procure yachts for North Korean elites, and uses Banco Delta Asia to launder its proceeds, according to the U.S. administration. In 2005, the Bush administration used the Patriot Act to single out BDA as a major money-laundering concern.

But there are no companies or persons targeted in today's announcement from any country outside North Korea, as had been advocated internally by ally South Korea, according to sources familiar with the discussions. Levey said the new rules will allow the president to add such entities to the list down the line, if warranted.

Asia experts welcomed the new measures as a small but constructive step in the right direction. They said that even though the measures have little chance of changing North Korea's behavior, by targeting the worst actors, some progress can be made.

"I think the administration has got this right," said Patrick Cronin, director of the Asia security program at the Center for a New American Security, who said that naming companies from countries like China would have only invited trouble.

"They want to maximize the potential to put pressure on North Korea and at the same time not unnecessarily damage the rest of your interests.  Smart sanctions here means getting specific with the entities that are doing the dirty dealing," he said.

Moreover, designating these entities as targets places them as a higher priority for intelligence gathering, which has its own intrinsic benefit, Cronin said. "Sanctions don't have to ‘work' to be useful,".

Weston Konishi, associate director of Asia-Pacific studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, said that there have been so many rounds of sanctions against North Korea that there's not much added benefit to additional measures.

"I don't think they are going to fundamentally alter the equation here," he said, adding that the move was symbolically important to show solidarity with South Korea.

In addition to various U.S. unilateral sanctions, North Korea is also sanctioned by the United Nations, chiefly under U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874, which seek to curtail North Korea's nuclear development and weapons proliferation, respectively.

Robert Einhorn, the State Departments special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control, said Monday that the administration's overall policy toward North Korea has not changed. The administration is still interested in engaging North Korea, but only if Pyongyang affirms its commitment to denuclearization and abides by its previously signed agreements.

"We're not prepared to reward North Korea simply for returning to the negotiating table, including by removing or reducing sanctions," said Einhorn. "We're not interested in talks for talks' sake."

The timing of the announcement had nothing to do with the trip to North Korea by former President Jimmy Carter, who returned from Pyongyang last weekend with pardoned prisoner Aijalon Mahli Gomes, Einhorn said.

 

Jimmy Carter is set to travel to North Korea very soon, according to two sources familiar with the former president's plans, in what they characterized as a private mission to free a U.S. citizen imprisoned there.

Carter has decided to make the trip and is slated to leave for the Hermit Kingdom within days, possibly bringing his wife and daughter along for the journey. His goal is to bring back Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a 30-year-old man from Boston who was sentenced to 8 years in prison in April, about three months after he was arrested crossing into North Korea via China. In July, North Korea's official media organ reported that Gomes had tried to commit suicide. Earlier this month, the State Department secretly sent a four-man team to Pyongyang to visit Gomes, but was unable to secure his release.

There will be no U.S. government officials on the trip and Carter is traveling in his capacity as a private citizen, our sources report -- much like when former President Bill Clinton traveled to Pyongyang last August to bring home Current TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who had wandered across the North Korean border with China and were promptly arrested and threatened with years of hard labor.

A senior administration official would not confirm that Carter has decided to go but told The Cable, "If anyone goes it would be a private humanitarian effort." Carter's office did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

The Obama administration wants desperately to avoid conflating the Carter trip with its current stance toward North Korea, which is to engage Kim Jong Il's regime only if and when North Korea agrees to abide by its previous commitments and agrees to return to the six-party talks over its nuclear program, which Pyongyang abandoned in 2008.

Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, had offered to go to pick up Gomes and has been working on the case for months, but our sources report Carter was selected because he is not a serving U.S. official. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson had also been considered, but it's not clear why he was not chosen.

Carter has personal experience dealing with North Korea. In a dramatic and controversial June 1994 trip, after North Korea threatened to reprocess its spent nuclear fuel and the Clinton administration called for U.N. sanctions, the former president flew to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Il Sung, and successfully persuaded him to negotiate.

This time, leading Korea experts say, Carter's trip should not be seen as a change in U.S. policy toward Pyongyang and will likely not yield any breakthrough in what most see as a diplomatic stalemate between the two sides.

"Obviously, State and the White House had to be involved in the planning of this. But if you're going to try to pitch this as a foreshadowing of a new diplomatic engagement or a breakthrough, it's certainly not going to be that," said L. Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Foundation, a think tank Focused on Northeast Asia.

When Clinton flew to Pyongyang to free the two Current TV reporters, who received a "special pardon" from the Dear Leader, he was extremely careful not to wade into policy matters.

"I don't anticipate that in any way President Carter will be carrying water for Obama or for any change in policy toward North Korea, because what is required for North Korea to move forward in negotiations with the United States is clear," said Flake.

But although Carter doesn't have official sanctioning to wade into North Korea policymaking, he might just do it anyway. Carter is known for having an independent streak, boldly taking on foreign-policy issues whether invited to do so or not.

Many former officials reference Carter's last trip to North Korea as evidence of this phenomenon. According to several officials who were involved in the policy at that time, Carter's deal with Kim Il Sung went beyond what the Clinton administration had authorized.

After the elder Kim's death the following month, the United States and North Korea entered talks in earnest, resulting in the 1994 Agreed Framework, which represents the most comprehensive cooperation between North Korea and the West to this day.

"As a result of his going slightly off the reservation, we got back to productive negotiations and before long negotiated the most effective agreement we've ever had with the North Koreans," said former ambassador Thomas Hubbard, who was then deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and deputy to the lead negotiator for the Agreed Framework, Robert Gallucci.

"You can't expect President Carter to take orders and do things the way the president wants it done, but to my mind it's a risk worth taking," Hubbard said. (Clinton himself later told former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell, "I took a chance on him in North Korea, and that didn't turn out too badly," according to an account by the late David Halberstam.)

Not everyone remembers Carter's trip so fondly. Some Clinton administration officials were furious with Carter at the time for coloring outside the lines, and saw him as being deliberately roguish, considering that he brought a CNN camera crew with him and announced his deal before the Clintonites could object. The Clinton White House decided to take his ball and run with it after the fact.

"There are a lot of memories of Jimmy Carter's last trip to North Korea and a lot of people kind of thought he hijacked our diplomacy," said Joel Wit, a former U.S. nuclear negotiator who is now a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies and the founder of its website about North Korea, 38 North. "The bottom line is he did a good thing and the work he did there helped to pave the way to get the Agreed Framework."

Some experts argue that sending Carter is a bad idea that will only encourage further bad behavior on the part of Pyongyang.

"Sending another ex-president establishes a very bad precedent," said Amb. Charles "Jack" Pritchard, who served as special envoy to North Korea during the George W. Bush administration. "Mr. Carter has a history, an understanding, and a point-of-view where I can't imagine he would not, on his own, engage the North Koreans on substantive issues more than just the return of Mr. Gomes."

"If that's what they want," he said, referring to the Obama administration, "then he's a very appropriate choice."

Obama's tough posture toward Pyongyang, which includes as yet unspecified new financial sanctions and repeated military exercises with U.S. ally South Korea -- all of which are meant to show solidarity and strength after North Korea sunk the South Korea ship the Cheonan -- could be compromised, said Pritchard.

"It sends a signal, whether intended or not, that the United States is trying to get past the Cheonan incident, with the potential that we would be slightly out of step with the South Koreans," Pritchard said.

That's not a universally held view among former Bush administration officials, however.

"In the end, if the priority is to get the American out and that is what's required, then it's worth it, you've got to do it," said Victor Cha, Asia director for the National Security Council during the late Bush era. "If Carter can be helpful in getting some diplomatic dialogue going, that's fine. I hope he doesn't have some package to pull out of his pocket; that wouldn't be helpful."

Yet there are already signs that the Obama team's decision to essentially forgo direct engagement for the time being while concentrating on pressure and coordination with allies is fraying at the top levels.

We're told that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is said to be frustrated with the policy, had her Policy Planning chief Anne Marie Slaughter convene a high-level meeting at the State Department earlier this month to examine fresh options.

No matter what Carter does or how the North Koreans respond, the debate in Washington is likely to ramp up due to this trip, said Wit.

"The minute you send Jimmy Carter to North Korea, you've got to believe the pot is going to be stirred."

With the Senate Foreign Relations Committee having delayed its vote on President Obama's nuclear treaty with Russia until September, the committee's top Republican is warning that time is of the essence.

Committee chairman John Kerry, D-MA, told committee members at Tuesday's business meeting that even though the committee could have approved the treaty, allowing it to go to the full Senate, he felt it better to take the time to build more consensus before requiring senators to stake out their positions.

But ranking member Richard Lugar, R-IN, warned that if the treaty stalls, it might be hard to build up momentum again. He also said he had argued internally for holding the committee vote this week to allow Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, to go ahead and reserve precious Senate floor time for treaty consideration in September.

If the committee doesn't vote until September, it's "problematic" to try to get floor time before the next break, Lugar said, meaning that the December "lame duck" post-election session would be where the treaty would get a full Senate debate.

"If not [before the election], then whether it works out in December or not is no longer a matter of parliamentary debate, it's a matter of national security," he said, citing the fact that U.S. inspectors have not been able to verify Russian behavior regarding nuclear weapons deployment since the original START agreement expired late last year. "We ought to vote now and let the chips fall where they may. It's that important."

"The problem of the breakdown of our verification, which lapsed December 5, is very serious and impacts our national security," Lugar said. Members may want to take extra time to consider the treaty, but if they are really concerned about Russian activity, ratifying the treaty is the way to address that, he added.

Kerry implored committee members to take the time over recess to think it over and come back to town ready to vote.

"We currently have no verifiability, no regime in place with Russia," he said. "My hope is that we can do this expeditiously when we come back ... Every senator should be prepared to mark up this resolution of advice and consent on September 15 or 16."

A draft of the resolution will be circulated well before then, Kerry added.

Meanwhile, more fence-sitting senators seem to be signaling that they are getting ready to support New START.

The Cable has been asking every single GOP senator repeatedly to state his or her position on the treaty. Before today, only Lugar and Bob Bennett, R-UT, had indicated support and only James Inhofe, R-OK, and Jim DeMint, R-SC, had said they would oppose it.

Today, The Cable caught up with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-CT, who had previously said he had not come to a conclusion. He now says he is taking steps to prepare for a yes vote.

"I'm waiting for further action on the modernization of the nuclear weapons program," he said, referring to Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl's ongoing negotiations with the administration over how much money will be made available for nuclear labs and other items.

Lieberman also said when the treaty does come up, he will put forth side documents called "reservations," which can be attached to the treaty to express congressional concerns while still allowing the treaty to go into effect without any changes.

"I may want to submit some reservations or understandings, which will enable me to vote for the treaty," he said.

The Cable also caught up with Senate Armed Services Committee member Jeff Sessions, R-AL, who wouldn't commit but seemed to be leaning toward a no vote.

Sessions said the treaty is not really important, gives too much to the Russians without getting enough in return, and compromises U.S. missile defense.

"It was pretty obvious to me that the administration team was all obsessed with getting it done and signing this treaty as some sort of psychological political statement to the world, and the Russians played us like a Stradivarius," he said. "I'm not buying the argument that this is necessary."

Sessions is most upset that President Obama laid out a goal of moving to a world without nuclear weapons in the first place. "This is such an unwise and incomprehensible policy that it makes everyone uneasy," Sessions said.

Still, Sessions won't say for sure which way he will go. When asked if he agreed with Lugar that time was running out, he said he doesn't have to state his position until a vote comes up.

"The vote's not today," he pointed out.

The State Department does not believe that Russia has been cheating on its obligations under START I, the now-defunct 1991 nuclear reductions treaty and is confident that Russia will abide by the new treaty when it is ratified, according to the treaty's top negotiator.

Concerns about Russian behavior were spelled out in two articles Wednesday, both of which referred to a newly submitted State Department report on treaty compliance over the last five years. Both articles asserted that language in the report referring to disputes between the United States and Russia over compliance and verification mechanisms spell danger for New START, which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to vote on next week.

But in an exclusive interview with The Cable, State's lead negotiator for New START, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation Rose Gottemoeller, said that nothing in the report accuses Russia of cheating or undermines the Obama administration's confidence that the new treaty can be enforced.

"Cheating implies intent to undermine a treaty. There's no history of cheating on the central obligations of START; there's a history of abiding by the treaty. " Gottemoeller said.

"Generally the record for the major conventions is a good one. With regard to START, the Russians have been very serious and it has been a success."

The Washington Post's version of the story was originally entitled, "Report finds Russians may not be in compliance, could sink new START treaty," a headline that shocked State Department employees. The headline was later changed to "Report findings about Russia could complicate debate on new START pact." The Washington Times' version was entitled, "Russia violated '91 START till end, U.S. report finds," another headline multiple State Department officials said was misleading.

With regard to START I, Gottemoeller said that there were several disputes over compliance issues on both sides, many of which had been resolved over the last two years due to intensive work between the Obama administration and the Russians. Yes, there are some compliance issues that were not resolved, but those covered minor technical issues, she argued, not a deliberate attempt by Russia to circumvent the treaty.

The text of the report (pdf), obtained in advance of its release by The Cable, backs up that assertion.

"The United States raised new compliance issues since the 2005 Report (the most recent one before today)," the document states. "The United States considered several of these to have been closed. A number of the remaining issues highlighted the different interpretations of the parties about how to implement the complex inspection and verification provisions of the START Treaty."

"We think [the compliance report] actually tells a good story about Russia and its willingness to resolve compliance and verification issues and should help ratification," said Gottemoeller, citing a now-resolved dispute over re-entry vehicles as one example of constructive U.S.-Russia dealing over compliance.

The Post's story focuses on the report's criticisms of Russian compliance with two agreements not directly related to START: the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.

"It remains unclear," the report states, "whether Russia has fulfilled its BWC obligations." Later on, it reads: "The United States is unable to ascertain whether Russia's CWC declaration is complete... and whether Russia is complying with the CWC-established criteria for destruction and verification of its CW."

On this point, Gottmoeller acknowledged that there are some outstanding questions about what biological and chemical weapons programs were left over from the Soviet Union and said that the Russian government is working with oversight bodies to resolve open questions, but that is not directly related to START.

A State Department official, speaking on background, noted the irony of GOP senators worrying about compliance and verification while stalling on ratification of the new treaty. Since the old START agreement expired last December, all U.S. personnel working to monitor Russian nuclear stockpiles have been removed and until the new treaty is ratified, there isn't any verification at all.

"We need a treaty to comply with," the official said. "Until the new treaty enters into force, we don't know what they are doing."

This official also sought to correct the record about what State sees as another misleading criticism of the department's actions on START -- that the administration believes Russian cheating, if it were discovered, would not be a big deal.

That line of argument stemmed from a recent congressional hearing where Pentagon official James Miller said, "Because the United States will retain a diverse triad of strategic forces, any Russian cheating under the treaty would have little effect on the assured second-strike capabilities of U.S. strategic forces."

The State Department official said that Miller's remark doesn't mean cheating isn't a big concern.

"As far as State is concerned, cheating is any form would be a huge issue... so it absolutely would be something we would take very seriously."

Now that the congressional supporters of the Tea Party movement have formed their own caucus, their policy positions are becoming easier to track. Expanding their foray into foreign policy, 21 members of the new caucus have now come out explicitly endorsing Israel's right to strike Iran's nuclear program.

Almost two dozen Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers cosponsored a new resolution late last week that expresses their support for Israel "to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force."

The lead sponsor of the resolution was Texas Republican Louie Gohmert, one of four congressmen to announce the formation of the 44-member Tea Party caucus at a press conference on July 21. The other three Tea Party Caucus leaders, Michele Bachmann, R-MN, Steve King, R-IA, and John Culberson, R-TX, are also sponsors of the resolution. In total, 21 Tea Party Caucus members have signed on, according to the latest list of caucus members put out by Bachmann's office.

The resolution cites threats by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to "annihilate" the state of Israel, endorses other means to persuade Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons, and states the lawmakers' support for an Israeli military strike "if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time."

"Members of the Tea Party caucus can and do speak for themselves," said Gohmert in an emailed statement, "but most if not all members have strong beliefs that we should not turn on our backs on our best friends and reward those bent on our destruction. This resolution was borne out of concern for the threat, not merely to Israel, but also to the United States." 

Notably absent from the resolution -- and indeed, from the Tea Party Caucus -- is Ron Paul, the Texas congressman and 2008 presidential candidate. Paul, who leads the libertarian wing of the Tea Party movement, was one of only 11 members of the House to vote against the recent Iran sanctions bill, which he called "very, very dangerous and not well thought out"; in 2007 he expressed his concern that "a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran."

There's little chance the resolution, which has 46 co-sponsors in total, will see a vote on the House floor any time soon. But the resolution signals increasing interest by the Tea Party and its congressional supporters in foreign policy.

Last week, a Tea Party-affiliated grassroots organization launched a nationwide campaign to build popular opposition to the administration's nuclear reductions treaty with Russia, called New START. The group is led by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's wife Ginny and it dovetails with similar efforts by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

The resolution also continues a theme among Tea Party leaders, such as Sarah Palin, who are seeking to separate the movement's domestic policies, which call for small government and fiscal restraint, from libertarian views on foreign policy, promoting instead an aggressive, unilateralist view of world affairs and unchecked military spending.

Read the whole resolution here.

For the first time since 2001, there is real and building momentum to include caps or even reductions in defense spending as part of the bipartisan drive to address the United States' runaway deficits.

Defense spending, which has more than doubled since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, has always been the third rail of congressional funding debates. After Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last year that "the spigot of defense funding opened by 9/11 is closing," there was widespread skepticism in Washington that either party would take up the cause.

Gates is directing all the military services to tighten their belts, and Pentagon sources say that every shop is looking for things it can do without. But as part of Gates's plan to incentivize the military to get rid of waste, he's instituted a policy that services can "keep what they catch," so that initiative won't lower budgets all by itself.

But now, a growing chorus of congressional Democrats, along with a smattering of Republicans, is feeling more confident that 2011 could be the year when actual limits on defense funding, or even cuts to the defense budget, might be imposed.

A watershed moment in this debate came last week, when the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Daniel K. Inouye, D-HI, unveiled spending guidelines for all the Senate subcommittees. His initial guidelines for the defense subcommittee, which he also chairs, limited core defense spending to $522.8 billion, $2.1 billion less than the president's request.

But when Republicans clamored at the hearing for lower overall spending, Inouye later reduced the total allocations by another $6 billion, taking all of that spending authority from defense.

The final guidelines also recommend $157.8 billion in war funding for next year, about $1 billion less than what the administration had asked for.

"It does not need to be said that the nation is at war and faces threats to our security globally. We cannot afford to let down our guard. Nonetheless, I believe we can achieve savings in our Defense Department, which would allow us to curtail defense spending modestly," Inouye said.

Although Inouye's spending levels are less than what Obama requested, the senator would still allow the defense budget to grow by almost $14 billion over last year's level, and he doesn't support a total freeze on defense spending.

But just in case anyone wanted to criticize the reductions he did recommend, he was quick to point out that 56 senators have voted for an amendment by Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-AL, and Claire McCaskill, D-MO, that would have placed a firm cap on defense spending and actually would have cut Obama's fiscal 2011 defense request by $9.5 billion.

Although the Sessions-McCaskill amendment was never enacted, the vote shows that even Republicans are now cautiously wading into the debate over whether defense spending is out of control.

At the same hearing last week, the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-MS, echoed the point made by President Obama and Democratic leaders like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD, that the national debt and national security are intimately related.

"The economy is in distress and we need to support programs and investments that will support recovery and growth. The size of our debt poses a direct threat to our national security," Cochran said.

Other Republicans are calling explicitly for cuts to the Pentagon budget itself. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma sent a letter to the president's deficit commission explaining exactly why he thinks defense spending is ripe for cost-cutting. "I appreciate that some of these thoughts are controversial," he wrote, "even to the point that I have some reluctance in suggesting them ... However, if we are to fulfill our mandate, we must make some difficult choices, not just recommend that others do so."

Meanwhile, House Democrats are increasing their activity on the issue. The House Oversight and Government Reform National Security Subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday focused on waste at DoD.

"The critical importance of our national security does not in any way exempt the Defense Department from its obligations to spend money wisely and efficiently," said chairman John Tierney, D-MA.

The witnesses were members of the Sustainable Defense Task Force, which issued a report in June that made recommendations it claims could save $960 billion in defense spending by 2020.

Some leading conservatives, such as former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, still believe and argue passionately that defense spending should not be where the government looks for savings and that defense spending should simply continue to go up and up.

Kori Schake, a top foreign-policy advisor to Palin's running mate, John McCain, during the 2008 campaign, disagrees.

"Conservatives need to hearken back to our Eisenhower heritage, and develop a defense leadership that understands military power is fundamentally premised on the solvency of the American government and the vibrancy of the U.S. economy," said Schake, who is now with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

All told, the Pentagon requested $708 billion for all defense activities, including some nuclear energy activities, the highest level ever. In 2001, that number was $316 billion.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that President Obama's strategic arms-control treaty with Russia will be eventually ratified by the Senate, with a smattering of reluctant GOP votes. But what if that doesn't happen?

The possibility of the treaty being rejected or stalled indefinitely is a real one. The center of gravity on the Senate side is around Sens. Jon Kyl, R-AZ, and John McCain, R-AZ, neither of whom has revealed yet which way they will vote. Interested but less-involved senators like Bob Corker, R-TN, are likely to follow their lead.

It's been reported that Kyl is in negotiations now, bargaining for concessions, such as more money for nuclear modernization or guarantees that missile defense won't fall victim to the treaty. But in the end, there's no assurance he will vote yes, and the treaty could be voted down or pulled from consideration. That would be a huge setback for U.S. credibility abroad and the Obama administration's entire arms-control agenda, according to experts, former officials, and foreign diplomats.

"If this were to go down, the ripple effect consequences around the world would be the worst possible outcome we've seen since World War II," said former Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who currently co-chair's Obama's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. "It would set in motion the disintegration of any confidence in the leadership of the two major nuclear powers to deal with this and it would set in motion a disintegration of any structural boundaries and capacities to deal with this. This would devastating not just for arms control but for security interests worldwide."

While New START is a deal between the U.S. and Russia, which account for approximately 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, its defeat would harm international efforts to later bring other nuclear powers into an arms-control regime, according to former Democratic Senator Gary Hart.

"The two of us have the greatest burden, but sooner or later we want to bring in China and our European allies that have nuclear arsenals and see how far we can go," Hart said. "But it must begin with us and the Russians, and if we turn our back... it's a giant step backward and it would set back our diplomacy, foreign policy, and national security in serious ways."

Meanwhile, European allies are growing frustrated with the slow pace of the Obama administration's arms-control agenda. Several European diplomats have told The Cable they are aware of the difficulties of Senate ratification but nevertheless feel they were given assurances by the administration and are looking to Obama to get it done.

"From the European point of view, nobody can understand why the START treaty has not been ratified," said France's Ambassador to Washington Pierre Vimont, "When we send cables back home saying that START might not be ratified, they ask us ‘What have you been drinking?'"

Arms-control advocates are concerned that the basic agreement that was struck between nuclear and non-nuclear countries in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- that the "have nots" would forgo building nukes if the "haves" promised to move toward eliminating their stockpiles -- is in jeopardy.

Some, like treaty supporter Sen. Richard Lugar, R-IN, argue that the basic idea of getting to zero nuclear weapons is so controversial, it shouldn't even be part of the START sales pitch.

"I don't fault ... President Obama for talking about a world without nuclear weapons, but neither do I think it is a particularly good idea to express the process in that way," Lugar said. "Talk of ‘no nukes' also invites opposition from those who see it as a sign of weakness in those who lack the backbone to face the world as it is. I don't think that criticism is fair, but it's out there."

A failure to ratify New START would not only risk the NPT and the goal of eliminating nukes, advocates of passage say, it would also spell trouble for the rest of the Obama administration's arms-control agenda, including the president's promise to seek ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and then pursue a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which would seek to end the production of weapons grade nuclear material.

When the Senate last voted on CTBT in 1999, which was also the last time the Senate had a contentious debate over arms control, its defeat was a huge blow for the Clinton administration and no arms-control debates have been see on the Senate floor since.

"The alternative [to ratification] is no START treaty, no verification, a clear setback to U.S.-Russian relations and widespread questioning of U.S. ability to carry forth international agreements if we can't get this treaty through," said John Isaacs, executive director of the Council for a Livable World.

He said that CTBT would be a difficult treaty to ratify in any case, and after the November elections, the potential presence of more GOP senators will make it that much harder.

"The ultimate lesson of New START is that nothing's easy," he said.

On 10:50 Tuesday night, Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri boarded Qatar Airways flight 52, bound for Doha. When he arrives at 6:30 Wednesday evening Qatar time, he'll board another plane to Tehran, his home.

The details of Amiri's life since the last time he was in Iran, 14 months ago, are sure to remain in dispute for some time. In an interview aired on Iranian state television Wednesday, Amiri accused U.S. and Saudi agents of kidnapping and drugging him while he was on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, eventually taking him to the United States. In another video released last month, however, Amiri claimed he was in the United States voluntarily and studying for a doctorate.

According to one source who spoke extensively with Amiri before he left the United States, his current story is the following: When he was in Medina, Saudi Arabia, in June 2009, a van pulled up as he was leaving his hotel room on the way to the mosque, and men he didn't know forced him into it.

The next sequence of events is hazy, according to Amiri's account. He says he must have been drugged, because the next thing he remembers is being in Washington, D.C., and in the custody of unspecified American intelligence organizations. They allegedly moved him around the country over the next 14 months, and he says that he spent much of his time in Arizona as well as Washington.

Amiri claims that he didn't give U.S. intelligence officers any information, and was caught by surprise when, on Monday night, he was taken out of his secret hiding location and put in a cab. The cab drove straight to the Iranian interests section in Georgetown, which is supervised by the Pakistani Embassy. A U.S. government car trailed the cab, he claims.

Amiri's alleged captors did not torture him physically, he now says, but they did abuse him "emotionally," placing him under great mental strain during his captivity. He did not talk about how or why he was able to produce three YouTube videos and publish them on the Internet.

According to two diplomatic sources close to the issue, the most plausible explanation is that Amiri defected willingly to the United States, but at some point decided he wanted to return to Iran. U.S. intelligence officers may have also decided that holding him was not yielding the benefits commensurate to the costs, and put him out. Under this theory, Amiri is now trying to restore his place in the system of the country he betrayed, while concocting a cover story about being kidnapped.

Amiri has a wife and son who still live in Iran. One source speculated that the Iranians could be threatening his family in order to coerce him to relate his current version of events. That would at least explain why Amiri is taking the huge risk of placing himself back into the hands of the Iranian regime.

Surrounded by Iranian minders during his meetings Tuesday with foreign officials who visited the interests section before going to the airport, Amiri told them he was happy to be going back to Tehran and relieved to be joined again with his Iranian friends. Appearing upbeat but nervous, he answered questions on Tuesday carefully and denied that he was being coerced to tell this latest version of the events surrounding his disappearance.

Our source said he got tripped up on questions that he wasn't prepared for, which some in the room took as a signal he wasn't being honest, and was trying hard to avoid contradicting himself as he told his tale.

Amiri's story conflicts with what little information the State Department has released regarding the case. For example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that Amiri came to the U.S. of his own free will and leaves on his own accord. "He's free to go, he was free to come, these decisions are his alone to make," she said.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that Amiri got to the Iranian interests section on his own. What seems clear is that the Iranians were ready for him: His travel back to Tehran was already being planned when he arrived.

In the absence of hard facts, rumors regarding Amiri's return to Iran continue to swirl. One source speculated that there may have been a swap deal between Iran and the United States, whereby Amiri would return to the Islamic Republic and then, sometime in the near future, Iranian officials would release the three American hikers they have held since July 2009, or even ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007.

Until the Obama administration gives a full account of its side of the story, Amiri's tale of the last 14 months of his life will be the only version of events that the public will hear. State Department officials continue to dance around the U.S. government's connection with him, and the circumstances leading to his departure.

"He has been in the United States, you know, for some time," Crowley said at Tuesday's briefing. "The United States government has maintained contact with him. I can't tell you specifically when he made this decision to return, you know, to Iran, but as we indicated today and as the secretary mentioned a bit ago, he's here of his free will and he's -- this is his decision to depart, and we are helping to facilitate that departure."

"We didn't seize him and bring him here, and we're not preventing him from returning to Iran," Crowley said. "That is how we do things here in the United States."

Conservative opposition to the new nuclear reductions treaty between the United States and Russia has entered a new phase, with detractors expanding their aim outside of Washington in the hope of building grassroots support for their drive to thwart Senate ratification and make the treaty the centerpiece of their criticism of President Obama's foreign-policy agenda.

Mitt Romney, the once and future Republican presidential candidate, unofficially announced the GOP's change in tone with a Washington Post op-ed entitled "Obama's Worst Foreign Policy Mistake."

In the article, Romney repeats all the longstanding criticisms of the treaty put forth by some Republican senators: that it constrains U.S. missile defense expansion, allows for Russia to opt out at any time, ignores Russia's advantage in tactical nuclear weapons, and generally gives more to the Russians than they are giving back.

Defense writers such as Fred Kaplan have pointed out factual errors in Romney's piece, and even Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, D-MA, felt the need Wednesday to respond directly with his own Post op-ed, where he took on Romney's arguments point by point and also accused the former Massachusetts governor of demagogueing the issue to score political points with conservative voters.

"Even in these polarized times, anyone seeking the presidency should know that the security of the United States is too important to be treated as fodder for political posturing," Kerry wrote.

But the expansion of the New START debate into the national political arena is not an accident. The anti-ratification crowd is mobilizing supporters all over the country with the express aim of making START a pillar of conservative opposition to President Obama's foreign policy.

One of the main activities signaling this shift is a nationwide lobbying effort recently begun by the group Heritage Action for America, a new organization closely tied to the Heritage Foundation, the well-known conservative think tank. Heritage Action for America was established as 501c4 organization, which means it can do direct lobbying on the Hill and broad grassroots lobbying around the country.

Killing START is one of the group's two keystone efforts, along with a drive to push a repeal of the new health-care bill in the House. The organization is now circulating a petition to its 671,000 dues-paying members featuring a video of Romney criticizing the treaty.

"To date, discussion of New START has been an inside-the-beltway issue with little input from the American people," Heritage Action's CEO Michael A. Needham told The Cable. "Given the potential impact of the treaty on American security, Heritage Action is committed to giving Americans a conservative voice in Washington. Our petition drive will empower Americans who oppose the treaty and ensure their senator will take note. It is the first step towards stopping New START."

And Heritage Action is not stopping there. The group has a detailed plan to target lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and persuading wavering senators to oppose the treaty. Votes up for grabs include moderate Republicans like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, but also conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson, D-NE, and Evan Bayh, D-IN.

The group also intends to put people on the ground in key districts while pressing their supporters to make their opposition to START known to their senators.

The new movement is timed to have an impact just as the drive to ratify New START heats up in the Senate. But the full-throated opposition to START as espoused by Heritage Action and Romney goes beyond the current position of many Senate Republicans who now are at the center of the START ratification debate.

This June 30 letter to Kerry from all the committee Republicans except for ranking member Richard Lugar, R-IN, argues that the Senate needs more time and information to examine the treaty but doesn't argue that the treaty is unacceptable on its face. Even the new agreement's leading Senate critic, Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-AZ, hasn't come out to say he opposes the treaty -- at least not yet.

Kerry's July 1 response letter points out that reams of documents on the new treaty have been given to Congress and more are on the way. Congress has already received reports on Russian compliance with the old START treaty up to when it expired last December and a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate on the new agreement, as required by law.

The compliance reports are important because the last report in 2005 revealed Russian cheating. There is also a "verifiability assessment" that State Department sources said will reach the Hill July 12. As for the NIE, sources familiar with the document say it hedges enough that either side could interpret it to fit their own frame. For example, the various levels of "confidence" the intelligence community gave to its assessments don't really help either side because they are so noncommittal.

That leaves only one document for Kyl and other senators to really fight about: their longstanding request for the full negotiating record for the new START treaty, which they suspect would reveal secret deals the administration is accused of making with the Russians regarding missile defense -- something the administration has flatly denied.

Both Republican and Democratic administrations have resisted handing over such records, and past administrations have reluctantly agreed to hand them over while warning about the damaging effect such disclosures can have on the executive's ability to conduct negotiations.

Regardless, some GOP offices are prepared to make a big issue out of it. "By continuing to insist, contrary to history and precedent, that it will not share the negotiating record of the treaty, at least as it pertains to tactical nuclear weapons, missile defense and prompt global strike, the administration is simply showing that it isn't serious about getting the treaty ratified," said one senior GOP aide close to the issue.

One administration official said he believes the fight over the record is all about politics. Supporters of the treaty argue that Republicans want to deny Obama a foreign-policy success before the mid-term elections. 

"The Republican demand for the negotiating record is akin to throwing mud against the wall to see what sticks ... Because the arguments against the treaty and the nomination are not working, they are just resorting to desperation tactics to create talking points," said John Isaacs, executive director of the Council for a Livable World.

Will it work? It's still too early to tell. Nobody seems to know how many votes can be relied upon for ratification, making the next three weeks leading up the August recess, when Kerry intends to move the treaty out of committee, crucial.

Pro-treaty forces already have their own grassroots effort underway, with participation by the Council for a Livable World, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Ploughshares Fund, the Arms Control Association, and Global Zero, a group that has its own movie and petition to support the drive to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.

"The START treaty now figures prominently into what Global Zero is doing," said Ploughshares President Joe Cirincione, who noted that Global Zero has already given out dozens of grants around the country. "This effort alone might dwarf what the Heritage Foundation is doing on a community and grassroots level."

He also pointed to bipartisan groups that are supporting New START, including the Partnership for a Secure America, which rounded up dozens of former officials from both parties to come out and support the agreement.

"There's an ongoing and increasing drive both at the grassroots and elite levels, aimed both at Republicans and Democrats, whereas the Heritage Action effort is only aimed at Republicans, and far right Republicans at that," Cirincione said.

The White House confirms that President Obama will sign into law Thursday sweeping new measures to impose unilateral penalties on companies that contribute to broad swaths of Iran’s energy and banking sectors.

The signing will take place in the East Room of the White House, and will include "members of Congress, leaders of organizations that worked to pass the bill," and U.S. officials including U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, according to an adminstration official.

The legislation, led by Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd, D-CT, and House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Howard Berman, D-CA, was passed by the House and Senate last week by votes of 408-8 and 99-0, respectively.

The administration has said repeatedly that implementing the sanctions does not signal an end to its two-track policy of mixing engagement and pressure. The White House hopes the measures will convince Iran to come back to the negotiating table.

Meanwhile, Iran is planning to meet again with Brazil and Turkey to follow up on the nuclear fuel-swap deal the three countries announced just before the U.N. Security Council voted to impose its own new sanctions on Tehran. The Obama administration has been clear that it considers the Brazil-Turkey deal insufficient and inadequate in dealing with international concerns over Iran’s nuclear program.