Another Democratic Representative Opposes The Iran Deal

 
Carolyn Maloney, New York Representative, Will Oppose Iran Nuclear Deal

By ALEXANDER BURNS
AUGUST 27, 2015

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney said on Thursday that she would vote against President Obama’s proposed nuclear deal with Iran, joining Senator Chuck Schumer and other New York Democrats in opposing the White House’s top diplomatic priority.

Ms. Maloney, a Democrat who represents the East Side of Manhattan and parts of Queens and Brooklyn, said in a statement that the agreement would not provide adequate oversight of Iran’s atomic facilities, or prevent the country from seeking nuclear arms over time.

“This is an agreement with a nation that has not honored its nonproliferation commitments in the past,” Ms. Maloney said, while warning that the deal “could also make the region even more dangerous by giving Iran access to financial resources, weapons and power.”

Ms. Maloney’s announcement helps solidify the New York congressional delegation’s status as a key front in the opposition to the deal, which would lift economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for its government taking steps to rein in its nuclear program.

Opposition to the deal has been intense within New York’s large Jewish community, because of fears about the potential threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to Israel.

Several senior Jewish Democrats from downstate have come out against the agreement in recent weeks, including Mr. Schumer and Representatives Eliot L. Engel, Nita M. Lowey and Steve Israel. Democratic Representatives Grace Meng of Queens and Kathleen Rice of Long Island have also stated their opposition.

Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, is the state’s lone Jewish member of Congress to express support for the agreement. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, an upstate Democrat, has also endorsed it.

A sizable group of Democratic lawmakers from New York City have yet to take a position, with some openly agonizing over a vote that would have them either anger a large group of constituents or undercut Mr. Obama and his foreign policy legacy.

Congress is to vote next month on a measure expressing disapproval of the deal. Lawmakers and advocates seeking to derail the agreement are believed to face long odds: Even if they pass the resolution opposing the pact, they would still need to override a veto by Mr. Obama to halt it from taking effect.

Ms. Maloney, in her statement, endorsed several of the arguments that the agreement’s opponents have made most insistently: that Iran cannot be trusted to bargain in good faith; that it is determined to harm the United States; and that lifting sanctions would give Iran billions of dollars that it could direct toward terrorism.

Ms. Maloney called it implausible to imagine that “a portion of that massive windfall would not find its way into the hands of terrorists.”

She also warned that supporters of the deal were overly optimistic in hoping that the Iranian government was poised for major change.

“Some believe that if we can just delay Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a more moderate regime in a country with a young population will assume power and abandon Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” she said. “We can hope for the best, but we need an agreement that assumes the worst.”