Bipartisan opposition to new Iran deal growing

U.S. and Israeli officials suggest that Washington’s potential return to the nuclear agreement with Iran is unlikely to take place before America’s midterms and Israel’s latest round of elections, as the talks appear to remain gridlocked over Tehran’s demands. But this doesn’t mean that the talks are dead. …

Still, amid heightened Iranian assassination threats targeting U.S. officials, and Tehran’s sale of Iranian drones to assist Moscow’s war effort, the White House has stayed the course, declining to withdraw from the negotiation process. It will likely fall on members of Congress of both parties to throw up roadblocks that would make a U.S. return to the nuclear deal untenable.

In a sign that the administration might face noteworthy bipartisan opposition to its march towards a deal, 52 lawmakers of both parties wrote to President Biden to ask that he deny Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi a visa to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York City this month. Their letter, sent last week, tied Raisi’s attendance to Iran’s ongoing terrorism campaign against U.S. citizens.