Pick Your Poison Vol. 3: Will House Democrats choose Clinton or Sanders on Iran Deal?

Hillary Clinton has failed in her quest to unify Democrats behind her, and now faces the prospect of a contested convention that will be decided by party insiders rather than voters. House Democrats now have a choice to make: Will they risk the ire of the liberal base and stand by unpopular FBI target Clinton? Or will they turn to socialist Senator Bernie Sanders and his extreme policies?

In this third of a series of pieces highlighting the pair of undesirable choices placed before Democrats, we will examine the Clinton and Sanders positions on the Iran Deal.

• The Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration is a bad deal that will make America less safe.
  • Earlier this year, Secretary of State John Kerry admitted the Iran deal would help fund terrorism.
  • Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes has bragged about creating a false narrative to sell the Iran deal to journalists and the public.
  • According to polling, just 37% approve of President Obama’s handling of Iran.
• Hillary Clinton supports the dangerous Iran Deal, but says she would go to war if Iran attempts to develop a nuclear weapon.
  • Clinton has endorsed the Iran deal, stating that it was “unrealistic” to get a better deal.
  • Clinton even takes credit for laying the groundwork for the Iran deal.
  • But Clinton breaks with President Obama in her willingness to use military action to enforce the Iran deal.
• Bernie Sanders also supports the Iran Deal, and goes even further, arguing that we should move aggressively to normalize relations with Iran.
  • Sanders admits the agreement is not perfect, but supports it to “give peace a chance.”
  • Sanders sees the nuclear deal as a step toward “warm relations” between the United States and the notorious state sponsor of terrorism.
  • Clinton has said that Sanders’s views on Iran show a “fundamental misunderstanding” of diplomacy.
• House Democrats will have to choose which path they prefer on Iran: Clinton’s support for the Obama administration’s dangerous nuclear deal and willingness to use military force to enforce it, or Sanders’ support for the deal and naïve desire to normalize relations with Iran’s radical leaders.

NRCC COMMENT: “Whether House Democrats stand with unpopular FBI target Hillary Clinton or socialist Senator Bernie Sanders on Iran, they will be standing in support of a dangerous deal that the Obama administration admits will fund terrorism.” – Bob Salera, NRCC Spokesman

Background:

Sanders: ‘It will be a contested convention.’ “Bernie Sanders predicted Sunday that Hillary Clinton would not win enough pledged delegates to claim the nomination ahead of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, and he delivered his most forceful call yet for superdelegates in states he’s won to consider throwing their support to him. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the Vermont senator argued that Clinton ‘will need superdelegates to take her over the top at the convention in Philadelphia. In other words, it will be a contested convention.’” (Daniel Strauss, Politico, 5/1/16)

Kerry: Some Iran sanctions relief likely to go to terrorists. “It’s likely that some of the billions of dollars in sanctions relief granted to Iran under a landmark nuclear deal will go to groups deemed to be terrorists, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday…‘I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists,’ he told CNBC television in an interview.” (Matthew Lee, Associated Press, 1/21/16)

Obama’s Foreign Policy Guru Boasts of How the Administration Lied to Sell the Iran Deal. “In Rhodes’s ‘narrative’ about the Iran deal, negotiations started when the ostensibly moderate Hassan Rouhani was elected president, providing an opening for the administration to reach out in friendship. In reality, as Samuels gets administration officials to admit, negotiations began when ‘hardliner’ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was still president. It was Rhodes who framed the Iran deal as a choice between peace and war, and it was Rhodes who set up a messaging unit to sell the deal that created an ‘echo chamber’ in the press. ‘[Al Monitor reporter] Laura Rozen was my RSS feed,’ says Tanya Somanader, the 31-year-old who managed @TheIranDeal twitter feed. ‘She would just find everything and retweet it.’ (Lee Smith, The Weekly Standard, 5/5/16)

Hillary Clinton makes forceful case for Iran nuclear deal. “Hillary Clinton offered her most robust endorsement yet of the nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration between Iran and six world powers… The former secretary of state said the deal ‘blocks every pathway for Iran to get a bomb’ and that it was ‘unrealistic’ to get a better deal, as some opponents claimed was possible… Further, Clinton made clear she would be willing to launch military strikes against Iran if the regime attempted to contravene its agreement and build a nuclear weapon anyway. ‘I will not hesitate to take military action if Iran attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon.’” (Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui, The Guardian, 5/6/16)

Hillary Clinton says she helped usher Iran to the negotiating table. “If it weren’t for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, there likely wouldn’t yet be an Iran nuclear deal, according to the former Secretary of State. While her Republican rivals who oppose the Iran deal might use that line against her, Clinton has touted progress with Iran as one of the hallmarks of her tenure at the State Department. ‘I spent 18 months putting together the sanctions against Iran so that we could force them to the negotiating table,’ she said at the MSNBC Democratic forum Nov. 6.” (Lauren Carroll, Politifact, 11/23/15)

Hillary Clinton breaks with Obama, threatens war to enforce Iran Deal. “While voicing support for the deal as the best option available, Mrs. Clinton gently distanced herself from Mr. Obama by promising to bring a firmer hand to American foreign policy. ‘I will not hesitate to take military action if Iran attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon,’ Mrs. Clinton said in a speech at the Brookings Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington.” (S.A. Miller and Seth McLaughlin, The Washington Times, 9/9/15)

Is Bernie Sanders Really Naïve About Iran? “In their January 17 debate, Sanders declared that, ‘What we’ve got to do is move as aggressively as we can to normalize relations with Iran…’ Hillary herself added that Sanders’s comments reflect a ‘fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to do the patient diplomacy that I have experience in…’ Sanders, by contrast, sees the nuclear deal as a first step toward ‘warm relations’ between the United States and Iran.” (Peter Beinart, The Atlantic  1/26/16)

Bernie Sanders defends Iran nuclear deal. “Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) defended the Iran nuclear deal, arguing that the only alternative to reaching an agreement is ‘war’ and that to support the deal is to ‘give peace a chance. Look, I’m not going to tell you that this is a perfect agreement … It’s so easy to be critical of an agreement which is not perfect,’ he said during an interview with CBS’s ‘Face the Nation.’” (Elise Viebeck, The Washington Post, 8/9/15)

Pew Research Center – April 2016 Politics and Foreign Policy Survey