The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations committee said that Russia and China will not be able to veto inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities under the deal announced Tuesday.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) attempted to downplay the multilateral nature of the agreement on Wednesday morning, claiming that the US would retain significant authority over the compliance process.
“As I understand, it does not go up to the United Nations Security Council,” he said on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” referring to inspections deliberations. “The process ends with the joint commission in which the Western powers have the majority and can obtain the right to inspect.”
In response to a question from C-SPAN host Greta Brawner, Cardin elaborated on the point, saying he was satisfied with the level of US influence within the International Atomic Energy Agency—the body that will decide if Iranian facilities need scrutiny.
“It’s going to be IAEA’s recommendations, and quite frankly that’s our institution,” he said. “If IAEA believes that they need to inspect, they’ll have the support in that commission to be able to inspect.”
“It may take some days before they can get there, but they’ll be able to get there,” Cardin added.
The current head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, has been criticized for being too cozy with Washington. Former senior officials have accused him of “pro-western bias, over-reliance on unverified intelligence and of sidelining skeptics,” The Guardian reported in 2012. One former American weapons scientists who worked under Amano with an IAEA team accused the Japanese national of “falling into the Cheney trap,” the paper noted. American diplomatic cables from 2009 published by Wikileaks also showed how Amano, when still vying for IAEA leadership, told US envoys that “he was solidly in the US court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”
Cardin noted that he believed it was “too early to tell” if Congress would approve the deal, though it doesn’t have to under the Iran Nuclear Review Act. Opponents of the effort need to muster a two-thirds majority in both houses for a resolution of disapproval to override the President’s threatened veto of such a move.
On Tuesday, shortly after details of the deal were released, Republicans attacked the President by claiming he left Moscow and Beijing with the ability to derail inspections. House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said the oversight of Iranian nuclear and military facilities is “only predicated on the idea that we have cooperation from Russia and China.
