Essay: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated by the United Nations and Iran, is an executive agreement. Through this agreement, the United States and the other members of the U.N. Security Council, have attempted to reduce the threat of a nuclear Iran. The P5+1 (the U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia, & Germany) and Iran finalized the JCPOA on July 14, 2015, nearing the end of Obama’s presidency. The United States has been attempting to negotiate nuclear proliferation with Iran since the early 2000s. President George W. Bush attempted to negotiate a similar agreement in 2003 and 2007, however, both attempts failed.  A Republican held Congress, lobbyists, and foreign diplomats & ambassadors all attempted to dissolve the agreement. The divided government during the 115th Congress forced President Obama to take part in unilateral public policy-making, which prevented this agreement from passing through the Senate confirmation process required of treaties. Regardless, Congress felt as though they should have some oversight in the creation of this historic foreign policy agreement and began a long process in which they passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 (INARA). Subsequently, Congress attempted to pass a substitute amendment, a formal resolution of disapproval, that would impinge on the President’s power to put the agreement into effect.
The JCPOA is commonly thought to be one of the greatest achievements, or biggest mistakes, of Obama’s presidency. In 2015, 31% of people strongly supported the JCPOA, while 35% strongly opposed it.  The JCPOA includes provisions that limit the nuclear capabilities of Iran in return for relief from strict sanctions.  The deal extended the amount of time that it would have taken Iran to develop nuclear weapons from less than one year to more than ten years. The JCPOA sets strict limitations on the level of enriched uranium that Iran can produce, less than 3.67% uranium-235, which is not capable of powering a nuclear weapon. The deal contained a provision that gave the P5+1 the power to redesign the Arak reactor in order to make it incapable of producing weapons-grade uranium. In addition, the agreement limited the number of centrifuges and nuclear facilities that Iran was allowed to operate and required Iran to give international investigators daily access to these facilities. In order to ensure that Iran was complying with the provisions of the deal the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be required to monitor all operational facilities, including those not ‘declared’ by the Iranian government.
Long before the agreement was finalized, Republicans were raising concerns about the significant nuclear capabilities that the Iranians were allowed to maintain. There was speculation  that if Iran were to break the agreement they would have the ability to build a nuclear weapon more quickly than they could be stopped.  Iran’s support of the suppressive Syrian regime, and terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, concerned Republicans—but also members of the Jewish community and some Democrats—that Iran would use the billions of dollars accrued from international sanctions relief and unfrozen assets to provide further aid to such groups. Most of the provisions in this deal only last ten-fifteen years, which caused some to critique that this agreement didn’t actually prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, rather just delayed the inevitable. These concerns prompted forty-seven Senate Republicans to draft a letter to Iranian leadership warning that the next Republican administration to see the Oval Office could be able to revoke the agreement “with the stroke of a pen.”  Without formal congressional approval, the executive agreement doesn’t hold the same type of permanence, or quasi-constitutional status, that a treaty would have held.
These concerns led Congress to propose many review bills of the JCPOA. In March of 2015, the Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act was introduced to the House of Representatives but was later subject to a complete Senate overhaul. The new bill was proposed by Bob Corker (R-TN) and was entitled the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015.  The bill passed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously on April 14th.  The bill gave Congress a period of sixty days to review the JCPOA—the clock would start after Congress received all related documents, which were required within five days of reaching the final agreement. During this sixty-day period, Obama was prohibited from lifting sanctions on Iran. The INARA gives the Senate the opportunity to pass a resolution of approval, a resolution of disapproval, or to simply let the review period run out, in which case the JCPOA would take effect.  If the president were to veto the resolution, the period during which sanctions remained in place would extend by ten days. The INARA also requires the sitting president to report all information regarding significant agreement breaches to Congress within ten days of the incident. For as long as the agreement is intact, the sitting president must submit a memo to Congress every 180 days that reports the compliance of Iran with the terms of the agreement. The INARA passed on May 7th with a 98-1 margin. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) voted against the bill and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) did not vote.
The INARA passed through Congress rather easily, however, the subsequent joint resolution of disapproval met many challenges in the Senate. On July 19th, President Obama submitted the final agreement and supplemental documents to Congress. This started the timer on the sixty-day review period stipulated in the INARA. On September 8th, the Senate began consideration of a resolution of disapproval using the Hire More Heroes Act of 2015 (HMHA) as the vehicle for substitute amendment #2640 to H.J.Res.61.  The substitute amendment, proposed by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), replaced the text of the HMHA with the following text:
“That Congress does not favor the agreement transmitted by the President to Congress on July 19, 2015, under subsection (a) of section 135 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2160e) for purposes of prohibiting the taking of any action involving any measure of statutory sanctions relief by the United States pursuant to such agreement under subsection (c)(2)(B) of such section.”
Republicans in the Senate faced the threat of a Democratic-led filibuster, made possible by Senate rules. In a 2014 version of the disapproval resolution, proposed by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), the resolution would have been considered under expedited procedures, thwarting the risk of a Democratic filibuster.  In order to pass a cloture motion on the resolution, Republicans needed sixty votes. The cloture vote on September 10th resulted in a 58-42 win for the Democrats. The joint resolution of disapproval never actually saw an up-or-down vote in the Senate.
President Obama promised to veto the bill if the Republicans had managed to pass the joint resolution of disapproval through Congress. In which case, the Republicans would have needed to persuade nine more Senators to vote in favor of the disapproval resolution to secure a veto-proof majority (67 votes in the Senate), which was highly unlikely to happen.  Subsequent votes, scheduled by McConnell for September 15th and 17th, also failed to reach the sixty-vote threshold required for cloture.  The period for congressional review of the JCPOA ended on September 17th without a joint resolution of disapproval leaving President Obama free to begin the process of waiving sanctions against Iran.
The JCPOA saw many lobbyist groups and organizations, on both sides of the political aisle, pressuring congressmen. The Jewish and pro-Israeli groups in America spent millions of dollars attempting to put a stop to the nuclear agreement. Among these lobbying groups was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC); this group set a $20 million budget that they used attempting to convince senators to vote in favor of the disapproval resolution.  The AIPAC organized an extensive grassroots campaign that attempted to swing congressmen to vote by capitalizing on the eroding public support for the JCPOA. The AIPAC is respected as a highly influential organization that promotes the best interests of the people of Israel. On the other side was J-Street, also a Jewish lobbying organization, which set their budget at $5 million. The Jewish population in the United States is relatively divided on the issue of Iran, with most not holding the same extreme positions as that of Prime Minister Netanyahu who called the deal a “historic mistake”.
There were some crucial votes that the Democrats needed to retain in order to defend the president’s executive agreement from Republican led attacks. There were four Senate Democrats that broke from President Obama: Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Ben Cardin (D-MA).  Senator Manchin was the most moderate among the Democrats who voted for the disapproval resolution. The most pivotal Senate votes in favor of the deal announced at the last minute their support: Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Gary Peters (D-MI), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
October 18th marked adoption day of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. On adoption day, President Obama was free to issue the waivers required to revoke sanctions on implementation day because Congress was unable to pass a joint resolution of disapproval. Before sanctions could be formally revoked, the IAEA had to verify that Iran had complied with the tasks outlined in the agreement (dismantling the Arak reactor, reducing operation of centrifuges, etc.).  On implementation day, January 16, 2016, United Nations sanctions, European Union sanctions, as well as American imposed sanctions were all terminated (or paused, as in the case of some E.U. sanctions).
As the Republicans foreshadowed with their letter to Iranian leadership, President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018, re-imposing U.S. sanctions on Iran.  France, Germany, Russia, and Britain all decided to remain in the agreement with Iran. America’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, according to a joint statement from French President Macron, German Chancellor Merkel, and British Prime Minister May, because the U.N. Security Council resolution remains the “binding international legal framework”.