WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on Friday became the latest senator to publicly declare his support for the White House nuclear deal with Iran — ending weeks of speculation on how he would vote on the controversial agreement.
As part of his declaration, the Colorado lawmaker and former Democratic campaign chief also unveiled a new legislative proposal that Bennet says will strengthen the deal while steering more money to Israel for its national defense.
“Our primary objectives are to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon, make sure Israel is safe and, if possible, avoid another war in the Middle East,” said Bennet in a statement that was released first to The Denver Post. “This agreement represents a flawed, but important step to accomplish those goals.”
Both the timing and the context of his announcement are striking, as each provide a window into Bennet as both policymaker and politician as he moves forward with his 2016 run for re-election.
Only two days before, President Barack Obama secured the last vote he needed to keep the Iran deal alive in the face of a critical, Republican-led Congress.
That assurance came Wednesday morning when Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., became the 34th senator to pledge her support — a significant milestone because that meant Obama had recruited enough Senate allies to block a bill that would undermine the deal.
By coming forward now, Bennet still is able to register his support while avoiding the political fallout that comes with being the “deciding” vote, a label that was used to great effect in past elections to target Senate backers of the Affordable Care Act.
Which is why Bennet’s roll-out of a new legislative package that includes funding for Israeli security is also significant.
Several major Jewish organizations and donors — including past Bennet supporters — have made clear they oppose the Iran deal.
Introducing the legislative sidebar then becomes an effort to blunt blowback while allaying Bennet’s own concerns about Israeli security in the wake of the nuclear agreement. His partner on the legislative package is fellow Senate Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland, who on Friday told The Baltimore Sun he would vote no.
“As a good politician, (Bennet) is addressing both — what he thinks is the foreign policy component of this as well as the domestic politics,” said Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based political analyst.
The basic terms of the nuclear deal call for an easing of economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for a dramatic drop in the country’s capacity to produce nuclear material, as well as new regime of international monitoring.
Whether the specifics of the agreement are stringent enough to prevent Iran from one day developing nuclear weapons, however, is a hotly-debated question and one that has triggered no small amount of lobbying and political advertising in Washington and Colorado.
Because of this atmosphere, it’s difficult to deny the political calculations that have gone into the timing and context of the move by Bennet, who recently finished a turn as chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Immediately following the announcement, a spokesman with the Republican National Committee slammed the move.
“Senator Bennet has shown his loyalty lies with Washington Democrats, at the expense of our national security, said RNC spokesman Fred Brown in a statement.
“The Clinton-Obama Iran deal not only falls short of the Administration’s own goals, it empowers the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism while never ultimately blocking Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon.”
But Bennet supporters have said repeatedly that the actual decision was based on policy and not with Election Day in mind — and that it would have been easier politically to vote against it, especially since the White House already had secured the 34th vote it needed in the Senate.
The claim backed by several players on both sides of the debate, who confirmed Bennet has spent weeks talking to a wide range of voices — from weapons inspectors to former members of Israeli security forces — in trying to understand the deal’s repercussions.
Bennet’s staff said the boss even took calls last month while trying to teach his teenage daughter to drive.
Mark Dubowitz, a vocal opponent of the deal, said he has spoken with more than 200 members of Congress, either one-on-one or in a group setting, and he described Bennet as “very open-minded and thoughtful and serious in these conversations.”
But he said he sensed deep conflict too in Bennet and other congressional Democrats.
“They are all anguished about this agreement and I would use the word anguished,” said Dubowitz, who serves as executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The Obama “administration has given them no choice.”
In his statement announcing support, Bennet spoke of the tough time he had trying to come to a decision.
“It is no surprise to me that there are sincere, heartfelt differences of opinion about the merits of this deal. ‘There are no prophets in our time,’ a former Israeli general told me. I agree. None of us knows what lies 10 or 15 years on the horizon,” he said.
But he said a few factors convinced him. One is that the major international players involved in the deal, such as China and Russia, would be unwilling to go back to the negotiating table if the U.S. backs out — leaving Washington without future leverage.
Another reason he cited is that signing the agreement would give the U.S. more credibility in the future if it is discovered that Iran cheats on the deal and the White House wants to take action.
Even so, Bennet said he was not completely satisfied, which is why he is introducing the pro-Israeli legislation with Cardin. It’s also why Bennet said it took so long for him to announce his position, as he still was sorting out the details of the package.
That legislation, which they plan to formally introduce soon, has several components. It forces the administration to keep track of Iran after it gets sanctions relief with the goal of finding out whether the money would go to terrorism groups.
The package also aims to give the U.S. more leverage if it’s discovered Iran is cheating even a little bit.
Finally, Bennet said it would “provide Israel the necessary conventional deterrence to ensure Iran cannot shield covert systems and facilities, no matter how deeply they are buried.”
The Colorado lawmaker has a personal connection to the debate as well, especially when discussing what it means for the future survival of Israel and the Jewish people.
In earlier speeches, Bennet has talked about his mother’s family and the struggle she and his grandparents went through as Jews in Poland during World War II.
“She and her parents endured that war in and around Warsaw. They and an aunt were the only members of their family to survive. Everybody else in their family perished at the hands of the Nazis,” he said in a floor speech delivered in May 2013.
His decision comes after weeks of pressure from all sides of the debate, from activists to administration officials.
Earlier this week, dozens of former federal lawmakers wrote a letter in support of the Iran agreement.
The list included several notable Colorado Democrats, including former senators Gary Hart, Tim Wirth and Mark Udall, and ex-House members Patricia Schroeder and David Skaggs.
They described the deal as the “most viable means to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and protect the security of the United States, Israel and other allies.”
“We agree that no deal is better than a bad deal,” they continued. “But we also agree that a good deal is better than no deal.”
Advocacy groups have taken to the airwaves too. Two organizations — the American Security Initiative and Veterans Against the Deal — teamed up to spend $700,000 in Colorado as part of $6.2 million national campaign aimed at putting pressure on undecided lawmakers.
In the 30-second spot, one wounded soldier says he was “blown up by Iranian bomb” and — with a picture of Bennet glowing onscreen — he adds that “every politician who’s involved in this will be held accountable” and that a “vote for this deal means more money for Iranian terrorism.”
“We’re doing everything we can to make people aware,” said Michael Pregent, executive director of Veterans Against the Deal.
Other groups have advertised too, including J Street, which supports the deal, and Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, an outfit tied to the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which opposes the agreement.
According to one estimate from a Democratic firm that tracks media buys, opponents of the deal have spent more than $1.3 million on TV ads in Colorado — more than three times as much as supporters of the agreement.
It’s one reason why Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, said Bennet was making the tough, but right, call.
“It’s the courageous thing to do. It may not be good politics but its good policy,” said Scowcroft, who supports the deal.
One survey released this week by the University of Maryland found that 55 percent of the respondents it polled wanted Congress to back the deal. A Quinnipiac University poll of Colorado voters this April found that 67 percent of the voters it reached supported a negotiated a settlement with Iran; 26 percent disagreed.
Now that Bennet has announced his support, that means every member of the Colorado congressional delegation has registered his or her opinion — with every Republican against the deal and all the Democrats in favor.
While Miksulski’s backing of the deal drains much of the drama from the debate, the issue is not completely settled.
Her endorsement means critics won’t have enough support in Congress to pass a bill in opposition that can overcome a veto by Obama, who has threatened that move from the start.
With several Democrats still undeclared, though, there remains the possibility that a bill opposing the deal won’t even make it to the president’s desk — as Senate Democrats could have the numbers to simply filibuster the measure.
It’s a scenario that one opponent called “outrageous.”
“Denying an up-or-down vote on this issue would be a miscarriage of our leadership,” said Mark Wallace, CEO of the group United Against Nuclear Iran.
Mark K. Matthews: 202-662-8907, mmatthews@denverpost.com or twitter.com/mkmatthews
