Congress Warns Biden of Making ‘Concessions’ to Iran

Senator Bob Menendez with Senator Jim Risch (File photo: AFP)
Senator Bob Menendez with Senator Jim Risch (File photo: AFP)
TT

Congress Warns Biden of Making ‘Concessions’ to Iran

Senator Bob Menendez with Senator Jim Risch (File photo: AFP)
Senator Bob Menendez with Senator Jim Risch (File photo: AFP)

Republican and Democratic lawmakers warned the US administration against removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from terrorism lists in exchange for Tehran's possible return to the nuclear agreement.

Lawmakers were furious after a two-hour closed briefing with the US Special Envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, on the updates of the Iran nuclear negotiations.

After the meeting, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came out with any questions about the size of the Biden administration's concessions to the Iranian regime.

Top Republican in the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch, issued a scathing statement after the briefing, expressing his extreme anger at "the concessions this administration is considering placating the Iranian regime."

Risch's statement is based on information provided by Malley and US security advisor Brett McGurk.

"A deal that provides $90-$130 billion in sanctions relief relieves sanctions against Iran's worst terror and human rights offenders, and delists the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] does not support our national security interests,” Risch said.

He warned that the agreement would enable Putin to continue to build his nuclear arsenal and benefit financially amid his aggression against Ukraine.

The Senator reiterated his previous calls for the administration to withdraw from the negotiations, pointing out that US allies in the Middle East and bipartisan lawmakers object to efforts to return to the agreement with Iran.

Democratic concern

Malley's classified briefing highlighted significant Democratic disagreements with the Biden administration in its efforts to return to the nuclear deal.

Several Democratic lawmakers are joining the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez in expressing their concern about the deal, namely in delisting the IRGC.

Democratic Senator Ben Cardin publicly criticized the possibility of removing the IRGC from the blacklist.

"I certainly would very much like to maintain that they are a terrorist organization because they are a terrorist organization," Cardin said.

"I recognize that negotiations will do things sometimes that some of us don't like. So, I'm not going to try to draw red lines. But that designation should remain."

Democrats in the House of Representatives sent a letter to the White House warning against delisting the Corps, saying Iran's nuclear program and activities are not limited to the Middle East through Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, but extend to the rest of the world.

Republican pressure

The Republicans intensified their legislative efforts to oppose any agreement with Tehran.

Over 80 Republican Congressmen sent a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to object to delisting the IRGC as a terror group.

The letter described the IRGC as one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world, saying it is responsible for the death of 600 US servicemen during the US occupation in Iraq.

Furthermore, 49 of the 50 Republicans at the Senate told Biden, democrats, and the international community that an Iran agreement without broad congressional support would not survive.

"Republicans have made it clear: We would be willing and eager to support an Iran policy that completely blocks Iran's path to a nuclear weapons capability, constrains Iran's ballistic missile program, and confronts Iran's support for terrorism,” they said in a letter to Biden last week.

They warned that if the administration agrees to a deal that fails to achieve these objectives or makes achieving them more complex, Republicans will do everything to reverse it.

"Unless Iran ceases its support for terrorism, we will oppose removing and seek to reimpose any terrorism-related sanctions. And we will force the Senate to vote on any Administration effort to do so,” the letter concluded.



Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
TT

Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)

Israel's effective use of air-launched ballistic missiles in its airstrikes against Iran is expected to pique interest elsewhere in acquiring the weapons, which most major powers have avoided in favor of cruise missiles and glide bombs.
The Israeli Army said its Oct. 26 raid knocked out Iranian missile factories and air defenses in three waves of strikes.
Researchers said that based on satellite imagery, targets included buildings once used in Iran's nuclear program, according to Reuters.
Tehran defends such targets with “a huge variety” of anti-aircraft systems, said Justin Bronk, an airpower and technology expert at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Cruise missiles are easier targets for dense, integrated air defenses than ballistic missiles are.
But ballistic missiles are often fired from known launch points, and most cannot change course in flight.
Experts say high-speed, highly accurate air-launched ballistic missiles such as the Israel Aerospace Industries Rampage get around problems facing ground-based ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles - weapons that use small wings to fly great distances and maintain altitude.
“The main advantage of an ALBM over an ALCM is speed to penetrate defenses,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
“The downside - accuracy - looks to have been largely solved,” he said.
Ground-launched ballistic missiles - which Iran used to attack Israel twice this year, and which both Ukraine and Russia have used since Russia's invasion in 2022 - are common in the arsenals of many countries. So, too, are cruise missiles.
Because ALBMs are carried by aircraft, their launch points are flexible, helping strike planners.
“The advantage is that being air-launched, they can come from any direction, complicating the task of defending against them,” said Uzi Rubin, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, one of the architects of Israel's missile defenses.
The weapons are not invulnerable to air defenses. In Ukraine, Lockheed Martin Patriot PAC-3 missiles have repeatedly intercepted Russia's Khinzhals.
Many countries, including the United States and Britain, experimented with ALBMs during the Cold War. Only Israel, Russia and China are known to field the weapons now.
The US tested a hypersonic ALBM, the Lockheed Martin AGM-183, but it received no funding for the 2025 fiscal year.
Because it has a large arsenal of cruise missiles and other types of long-range strike weapons, Washington has otherwise shown little interest in ALBMs.
A US Air Force official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ALBMs are not used in Air Force operations.
Raytheon's SM-6, an air-defense missile that has been repurposed for air-to-air and surface-to-surface missions, also has been tested as an air-launched anti-ship weapon, said a senior US defense technical analyst, who declined to be identified because the matter is sensitive.
In tests the missile was able to strike a small target on land representing the center of mass of a destroyer, the analyst said. Publicly, the SM-6 is not meant for air-to-ground strikes.
Because ALBMs are essentially a combination of guidance, warheads and rocket motors, many countries that have precision weapons already have the capability to pursue them, a defense industry executive said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“This is a clever way of taking a common set of technologies and components and turning it into a very interesting new weapon that gives them far more capability, and therefore options, at a reasonable price,” the executive said.