AIPAC demonstrates muscle, then partially retreats on Iran.

AIPAC demonstrates muscle, then partially retreats on Iran.(Jpost).

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee sent a message on Thursday to those who doubt its influence in Washington.

On Monday, the New York Times declared a victory for US President Barack Obama over AIPAC, the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States. AIPAC has aggressively pushed for legislation in Congress that holds diplomats in Geneva accountable— by AIPAC's standards— in their efforts to negotiate a settlement to the longstanding nuclear crisis with Iran.

Progress has been slow— "blunted," according to the Times report. But with a strongly-worded letter from the Republican Senate caucus, and with a forceful speech from Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez on the chamber floor on Thursday, AIPAC is pushing back, and reasserting its influence on Capitol Hill.

Dozens of Senate Republicans sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday night demanding a vote on Menendez's bill, which would trigger additional sanctions tools against Iran should Obama’s efforts at diplomacy fail to end the longstanding nuclear impasse.

Their letter aimed to call attention to a significant shift in the dynamic in Congress on Iran policy, one of the sole bipartisan issues left on the Hill.

That bipartisanship is in jeopardy, the 42 Republican members said, as Reid – following the lead of the president and an apparent majority of Democrats who oppose the bill at this time – has given no indication he has any plans to bring the legislation to a vote.

The letter called the moment a “crossroads” in the two parties’ unified effort to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capacity.


Bucking Obama's veto threat, Menendez said on Thursday that the bill should be seen as a "win" by the White House, urging his colleagues to support the bill and warning against a rare partisan fracture on the longstanding national security issue.

But for the first time, Menendez raised doubt that now was the "appropriate time" for a vote on the bill.

"I hope that we will not find ourselves in a partisan process trying to force a vote on a national security matter before its appropriate time," he said.

"Troubling signs have already appeared" since an interim deal between Iran and world powers took effect last month, the Senate Democrat said, that lead many in the upper chamber of Congress to remain distrustful of Iran and its intentions in negotiations over its expansive nuclear program.

"The Administration and the Senate have a common interest– to prevent a nuclear-weapons-capable-Iran," Menendez (D-NJ) said. "We have differences as to how to achieve it. We have an obligation to debate those differences and concerns. But I will not yield on a principled difference."
AIPAC put out a statement commending Menendez's speech shortly after he left the floor of the Senate on Thursday afternoon.

"We agree with the Chairman that stopping the Iranian nuclear program should rest on bipartisan support," AIPAC's statement read, "and that there should not be a vote at this time on the measure."

That position marks a shift: before Menendez's speech, AIPAC officials were insisting the lobby would continue to build support for the bill, and that it expected a floor vote before the expiration of the interim nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Plan of Action.