Mitch Perry
Waiting until it’s almost time for the actual vote, Orlando Democratic U.S. Rep. and 2016 Senate candidate Alan Grayson says he’ll support the nuclear deal negotiated between the P5 + 1 counties and Iran.
In an email sent to his supporters Wednesday night, Grayson wrote that his reasons are “many and varied.” If Congress rejects the deal, he says, international sanctions would fall apart immediately, and it would get worse from there.
“There are those who posit that if the deal is rejected Iran will return to the negotiating table,” he writes. “I don’t see a lot of support for those hypotheses. They might be right but, more importantly, they might be wrong. I wish that these negotiations had been used as a vehicle to bring peace to the region. But it’s too late for that now. The immediate question is a simple one: Is it more dangerous to have an agreement, or to have no agreement? On the evidence I see, it’s more dangerous to have no agreement. So I will be voting in favor of the Iran nuclear agreement.”
Grayson joined his Democratic opponents for U.S. Senate, Jupiter U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, in supporting the deal. Other Florida House Democrats supporting it include Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kathy Castor, Frederica Wilson and Corrine Brown. Democrats Lois Frankel, Ted Deutch and Alcee Hastings oppose the deal.
Gwen Graham is the lone Democrat who has not announced where she stands on the issue.
Here’s Grayson’s entire letter:
Dear XXXX
I will be voting in favor of the Iran nuclear agreement. The reasons are many and varied, but the reason that weighs most heavily in my mind is the proverbial worst-case scenario:
Scene 1: Congress rejects the deal. International sanctions fall apart immediately.
Scene 2: Without disabling any nuclear facilities, Iran receives the $55 billion in accounts receivable for its oil sales.
Scene 3: Iran ramps up oil production, adding another $20 billion in oil revenue per year.
Scene 4: The anti-Iran rhetoric of GOP Presidential candidates intensifies; several of them promise to bomb Iran before sundown on Inauguration Day, 2017.
Scene 5: Iran enriches uranium beyond 20%, and starts to build nuclear weapons, trying to finish just in time to celebrate the “Birth of the Prophet” (Dec. 28 this year, if you’re a Shi’ite)
Then there is a fork in the road:
Scene 6A: Iran builds several nuclear weapons, with the threat that they will be used in combat, or shared with allies like Hezbollah. A nuclear arms race breaks out in the Middle East.
Scene 6B: The United States goes to war against Iran, to try to destroy its nuclear facilities. Iran and its allies counterattack against U.S. interests, specifically including U.S. forces and “assets” in the region.
Scene 6C: Israel goes to war against Iran. The outcome is uncertain, and the possibility looms of perpetual war between two countries separated by two other countries, and a distance of 1,000 miles.
There are those who posit that if the agreement is rejected, Iran will refrain from building nuclear weapons.
There are those who posit that if the agreement is rejected, other countries will adhere to international sanctions.
There are those who posit that if the deal is rejected Iran will return to the negotiating table.
I don’t see a lot of support for those hypotheses. They might be right but, more importantly, they might be wrong.
I wish that these negotiations had been used as a vehicle to bring peace to the region. But it’s too late for that now. The immediate question is a simple one: Is it more dangerous to have an agreement, or to have no agreement?
On the evidence I see, it’s more dangerous to have no agreement. So I will be voting in favor of the Iran nuclear agreement.
Courage,
Rep. Alan Grayson
A shlekhter sholem iz beser vi a guter krig.
(A bad peace is better than a good war.)– Yiddish Proverb
A rebellion by conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives on Wednesday delayed Congress’ first vote on the Iran deal, and raised the possibility that lawmakers might never vote on a resolution disapproving of the pact.
Reuters reports that the House was supposed to vote on a procedural motion to begin debate on Wednesday, but it was put off after Republicans said they want President Barack Obama to provide more information about the deal. As a result, the Republicans, who control Congress and for weeks had been marching in lockstep in opposition to the nuclear accord, were suddenly battling each other and possibly giving Obama the upper hand.
