Senate Republicans Signal Reservations About Prospect of a New Iran Deal

Senate Republicans indicated last week that they had reservations about the prospect of a new round of talks and a potential new nuclear deal with Iran, a prospect that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) floated at his confirmation hearing to be secretary of state, while remaining largely noncommittal on the prospect.

“My view is that we should be open to any arrangement that allows us to have safety and stability in the region, but one in which we’re clear-eyed,” Rubio said on the subject of Iran’s nuclear program. “Any concessions that we make to the Iranian regime, we should anticipate that they will use, as they have used in the past, to build their weapons systems and to try to restart their sponsorship of Hezbollah and other related entities around the region.”

The idea of talks has not been met with enthusiasm from Senate Republicans, whose backing would be critical for such a deal and who have spent the past decade inveighing against the Iran nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration in 2015.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, explicitly rejected a diplomatic approach with Iran and called for the U.S. to back Israeli military strikes.

“There’s diplomacy — there’s a one-in-a-trillion chance you’ll degrade the Iranian nuclear program through diplomacy. There’s a 90% chance you’ll degrade it through military action by Israel, supported by the United States,” Graham said. “So the next topic I will be engaging in with President [Donald] Trump is to take this moment in time to decimate the Iran nuclear program. Help Israel deliver a knockout blow.”

“I don’t think diplomacy works,” Graham continued. “It would be like negotiating with Hitler. I am hoping there would be an effort by Israel to decimate the Iran nuclear program supported by the United States. And if we don’t do that, it will be a historical mistake.”

None of the nearly half-dozen Senate Republicans that Jewish Insider spoke to last week were willing to directly endorse a diplomatic approach, though none ruled it out either.

“I would have to know what the background would be for that and what the arrangement would look like because, as we’ve seen from past performance, Iran never, never abides by any agreement they’re put under,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said. “There would have to be a very high level of transparency with the Iranians, so I’m not bought into it yet. I’d have to see what the deal was.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told JI that he agrees “with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanuyahu [that] Iran should never get access to a nuclear weapon.”

“I don’t know what Senator Rubio is talking about in terms of a deal, but that would be a nonnegotiable position, at least as far as I’m concerned. And I’m going to be shocked if he, or anybody else, thinks that Iran should ever get a nuclear weapon, because it will change everything about the Middle East,” Cornyn said.

He said he didn’t know if negotiations would be a viable path to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while noting that “Israel has put a lot of pressure on Iran, and they are sort of back on their heels because of Syria. I think that’s an open question.”

Some analysts have suggested that, with the Iranian regime weakened, it could be the ideal time for an Israeli or American military strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said he hadn’t seen Rubio’s comments, adding, “We should always be looking for ways to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. I’m skeptical that this current regime can be trusted.”

Other Republicans — while still not enthusiastic — were less openly skeptical of the prospect of a new deal.

“All options are on the table for our country’s best interests,” Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) told JI.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said he’d defer to the State Department on whether to pursue a new deal.

Off Capitol Hill, in a report last month, the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security of America, which has long supported Israeli or American strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, expressed a preference for Trump to threaten to destroy Iran’s nuclear program if it did not dismantle it and impose maximum pressure sanctions, but also laid out conditions for potential talks, should Trump prefer to pursue them.

The report said Trump should “at least consider Iran’s offer of talks seriously if only to build support” for stronger sanctions if the talks fall through, but said that any negotiations should be backed by strong pressure and a military threat. The JINSA report was led in part by former Ambassador Elliott Abrams, who served as an Iran envoy in Trump’s first term.

“Senator Rubio is smart to be open to the possibility of a good deal that secures U.S. interests and ends the Iranian nuclear threat,” John Hannah, a senior fellow at JINSA, told JI. “But he’s also right to be deeply skeptical that the Iranian regime remotely shares that interest.”

Hannah said Rubio was wise to note in the hearing that Iran is likely to use negotiations as a delaying tactic, adding that any talks should be time-limited, include up-front concessions from Iran and be accompanied by a clear threat to destroy Iran’s nuclear program if it refuses to do so willingly.

Others oppose negotiations under any circumstances.

“Whatever deal is done, what Iran will do is just wait Trump out” for a more permissive administration, under a Democrat or Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “The deal should be avoided at all costs because all it’s going to do is put Israel in a much weaker position, [and] put [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khameinei in a much stronger position.”

Dubowitz said that the only way to bring stability to the Middle East would be by permanently eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as well as its proxy network and missile inventory, which would be nonstarters for Tehran in negotiations.

He said that the prospect of talks with the regime could highlight the divide between the more hawkish wing of the party represented by Rubio, incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth, the nominee to be defense secretary, and the faction averse to military intervention, represented by Vance and Tucker Carlson.

The FDD CEO said he believes Rubio’s comments at his confirmation hearing were guided by Trump’s preference for and interest in making a deal, rather than Rubio’s own views.

“If the [Vance and Carlson] view trumps the views of people like Rubio and Waltz and Hegseth and others, then you could see there being a deal,” Dubowitz said, while predicting that hawks in the administration could try to block a deal internally by framing it as “humiliating” or “embarrassing” to Trump personally.

Dubowitz said that the prospect of Trump pursuing talks could prompt Israel to take quick military action against Iran’s nuclear program, but also urged the incoming Trump administration to conduct strikes itself.

Originally published in Jewish Insider.