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Mark Dubowitz, sanctions guru at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is fed up with the scare-mongering over new sanctions. "Instead of playing into the Iranian trap of threatening that any form of pressure will blow up negotiations, the administration would be well advised to work constructively with Congress on such a bill instead of continuing to ignore lawmakers' concerns," he says. "The bill can use a phased approach to tightening the screws backed up by a credible threat of a tidal wave of sanctions if Iran continues its nuclear intransigence. So far the administration has failed to deliver; it's time to respect the advice of Congress which played an instrumental role in designing the toughest sanctions over administration objections."
The administration demands to continue the process in which Iran pays no price (to the contrary, gets sanction relief) while we abandon position after position. This practice is only being enabled by Paul and a shrinking band of mostly left-wing opponents of renewed sanctions who insist we can't interfere with the negotiations. Paul makes sense only if you think negotiations are going well, that John Kerry and Wendy Sherman should be trusted and that the stream of U.S. concessions and Iran's total lack of concern about adverse consequences from delaying and refusing to make a deal are acceptable.
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