奥巴马欲绕过国会搞定伊朗核协议

WASHINGTON — No one knows if the Obama administration will manage in the next five weeks to strike what many in the White House consider the most important foreign policy deal of his presidency: an accord with Iran that would forestall its ability to make a nuclear weapon. But the White House has made one significant decision: If agreement is reached, President Obama will do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote on it.

华盛顿——没有人知道，在接下来的五周内，奥巴马政府是否能与伊朗达成一个协议，限制其制造核武器的潜在能力；白宫很多人都认为，这会是奥巴马担任总统期间最重要的一个外交政策协议。但白宫已经做出了一个重大决定：如果协议达成，奥巴马总统将会尽一切所能，避免让国会对其进行表决。

Even while negotiators argue over the number of centrifuges Iran would be allowed to spin and where inspectors could roam, the Iranians have signaled that they would accept, at least temporarily, a "suspension" of the stringent sanctions that have drastically cut their oil revenues and terminated their banking relationships with the West, according to American and Iranian officials. The Treasury Department, in a detailed study it declined to make public, has concluded Mr. Obama has the authority to suspend the vast majority of those sanctions without seeking a vote by Congress, officials say.

伊朗将被允许使用多少台离心机？检查员可以到哪些地方检查？即使在这些问题上，谈判代表还在进行争论，但美国和伊朗官员称，伊朗已经表示，他们可以接受制裁的“暂停”，至少是暂时性地接受它；这些严厉制裁已经大幅削减了伊朗的石油收入，并切断了他们与西方银行之间的关系。美国财政部(Treasury Department)进行了一项它拒绝公开的详细研究，官员们说，该研究得出结论：奥巴马无需经过国会投票，就有权暂停这些制裁中的绝大多数。

But Mr. Obama cannot permanently terminate those sanctions. Only Congress can take that step. And even if Democrats held on to the Senate next month, Mr. Obama's advisers have concluded they would probably lose such a vote.

不过，奥巴马不能永久性地终止这些制裁。只有国会能这么做。奥巴马的顾问们得出结论，即使民主党下个月能在参议院继续保持多数席位，他们还是可能会在这样的表决中失利。

"We wouldn't seek congressional legislation in any comprehensive agreement for years," one senior official said.

“多年来，对于任何全面性的协议，我们都不愿寻求国会立法，”一位高级官员说。

White House officials say Congress should not be surprised by this plan. They point to testimony earlier this year when top negotiators argued that the best way to assure that Iran complies with its obligations is a step-by-step suspension of sanctions — with the implicit understanding that the president could turn them back on as fast as he turned them off.

白宫官员说，国会不应对这个计划感到惊讶。因为在今年年初的证词中，高级谈判代表表示，确保伊朗遵循其义务的最好方式，就是逐步中止制裁——双方有一种默契，就是知道美国总统随时可以暂停制裁，也随时可以恢复它们。

"We have been clear that initially there would be suspension of any of the U.S. and International sanctions regime, and that the lifting of sanctions will only come when the I.A.E.A. verifies that Iran has met serious and substantive benchmarks," Bernadette Meehan, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said Friday, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. "We must be confident that Iran's compliance is real and sustainable over a period of time."

“我们已经明确表示，美国和国际制裁一开始将是被暂停，而只有当国际原子能机构(International Atomic Energy Agency)证实，伊朗已达到了重大的、实质性的标准，我们才会解除制裁。”国家安全委员会(National Security Council)的女发言人贝尔纳黛特·米汉(Bernadette Meehan)上周五表示。“必须让我们有信心，相信伊朗是真的在遵守协议，而且可持续一段时间才行。”

But many members of Congress see the plan as an effort by the administration to freeze them out, a view shared by some Israeli officials who see a congressional vote as the best way to constrain the kind of deal that Mr. Obama might strike.

不过，在很多国会议员眼中，政府制定这个计划是为了把他们晾在一边；一些以色列官员也有同样的看法，他们觉得，要限制奥巴马可能会达成的协议的类型，国会表决是最好的方法。

Ms. Meehan says there "is a role for Congress in our Iran policy," but members of Congress want a role larger than consultation and advice. An agreement between Iran and the countries it is negotiating with — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — would not be a formal treaty, and thus would not require a two-thirds vote of the Senate.

米汉说，“在我们的伊朗政策中，有需要国会去做的事，”但国会议员不想只是做咨询和建议。伊朗与谈判国——美、英、法、德、俄罗斯和中国——之间达成的协议，不会成为一个正式条约，不需要获得参议院三分之二的票数。

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat, said over the weekend that, "If a potential deal does not substantially and effectively dismantle Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program, I expect Congress will respond. An agreement cannot allow Iran to be a threshold nuclear state." He has sponsored legislation to tighten sanctions if no agreement is reached by Nov. 24.

参议院外交委员会(Senate Foreign Relations Committee)主席、新泽西州民主党参议员罗伯特·梅嫩德斯(Robert Menendez)上周末说，“如果所达成的协议，没有在实质上有效地摧毁伊朗的非法核武器计划，那么我希望国会做出反应。不能让一纸协议来纵容伊朗跨过核国家门槛。”他支持了一项立法，如果11月24日没有达成协议，就加紧对伊朗的制裁。

A leading Republican critic of the negotiations, Senator Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, added, "Congress will not permit the president to unilaterally unravel Iran sanctions that passed the Senate in a 99 to 0 vote," a reference to the vote in 2010 that imposed what have become the toughest set of sanctions.

在批评这个谈判的人中，伊利诺伊州共和党参议员马克·S·柯克(Mark S. Kirk)很出名，他说：“参议院以99比0的表决结果通过了一些对伊朗的制裁，国会是不会允许总统单方面解除这些制裁的，”他指的是2010年国会就一些最严厉制裁进行的表决。

Such declarations have the Obama administration concerned. And they are a reminder that for a deal to be struck with Iran, Mr. Obama must navigate not one negotiation, but three.

这样的声明引起了奥巴马政府的担心。而且它们提醒人们，要与伊朗达成一项协议，奥巴马必须进行的谈判不是一个，而是三个。

The first is between Mr. Obama's negotiators and the team led by Mohammad Javad Zarif, the savvy Iranian foreign minister. The second is between Mr. Zarif and forces in Tehran that see no advantage in striking a deal, led by many in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and many of the mullahs. The critical player in that effort is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has reissued specific benchmarks for an accord, including Iran's eventual expansion of its uranium enrichment program by nearly tenfold. And the third is between Mr. Obama and Congress.

第一个谈判，发生在奥巴马的谈判代表和精明的伊朗外长穆罕默德·贾瓦德·扎里夫(Mohammad Javad Zarif)带领的谈判代表之间。第二个谈判，发生在扎里夫和德黑兰的一些势力之间；后者由伊斯兰革命卫队(Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps)的很多人和很多毛拉率领，认为达成协议没有好处。这项任务中的关键人物是阿亚图拉·阿里·哈梅内伊(Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)，他再次发布了协议的具体标准，其中包括伊朗最终把其铀浓缩计划扩大近十倍。第三个，是奥巴马和国会之间的谈判。

Mr. Zarif, in an interview last summer, said that Mr. Obama "has a harder job" convincing Congress than he will have selling a deal in Tehran. That may be bluster, but it may not be entirely wrong.

去年夏天，扎里夫在一次采访中说，相较于他说服德黑兰那些势力接受协议，奥巴马说服美国国会“更难一些”。这可能有些夸张，但也未必完全不对。

Many of the details of the negotiations remain cloaked. The lead negotiator, Wendy Sherman, the under secretary of state for political affairs and a leading candidate to become the State Department's No. 2 official next month, struck a deal with congressional leaders that enables her to avoid public testimony when the negotiations are underway. Instead, she conducts classified briefings for the key congressional committees.

谈判的很多细节仍未曝光。美国首席谈判代表是负责政治事务的副国务卿温迪·R·舍曼(Wendy R. Sherman)，她也是最有希望在下月成为国务院第二号官员的候选人。舍曼与国会领导人达成协议，双方同意，在谈判进行的过程中，她可以不用公开作证，而是为重要的国会委员会提供机密报告。

But it is clear that along with the fate of Iran's biggest nuclear sites — Natanz and Fordow, where uranium fuel is enriched, and a heavy-water reactor at Arak that many fear will be able to produce weapons-grade plutonium — the negotiations have focused intently on how sanctions would be suspended. To the Americans, the sanctions are their greatest leverage. For many ordinary Iranians, they are what this negotiation is all about: a chance to boost the economy, reconnect with the world and end Iran's status as a pariah state.

但很显然，这个谈判除了关系到伊朗最大核设施的命运——进行铀燃料浓缩的纳坦兹和福尔道，还有阿拉克，很多人担心那里的一个重水反应堆将能制造出武器级钚——而且还着重聚焦在暂停制裁的方式上。对美国人来说，制裁是他们最大的筹码。而对于很多普通的伊朗人，这就是这次谈判的目的：获得一个刺激经济、重新与世界相连，结束伊朗遗世独立状态的机会。

For that reason, many think Mr. Obama's best option is to keep the negotiations going if a deal is not reached by the deadline, a possibility both Iranian and Russian officials have floated.

出于这个原因，很多人认为，如果像伊朗和俄罗斯官员提到的那样，到了截止日期，协议可能还是没能达成，那么奥巴马的最佳选项就是继续谈判。

"Between now and 2017 Obama's goal is to avert an Iranian bomb and avert bombing Iran," said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "If Congress feels obliged to pass additional sanctions, the best way to do it would be to create a deterrent — basically to say if you recommence activities Iran has halted, here are new sanctions."

“从现在到2017年，奥巴马的目标是阻止伊朗制造原子弹，而且避免对伊朗进行轰炸，”卡内基国际和平研究院(Carnegie Endowment)的伊朗问题专家卡里姆·萨德杰普尔(Karim Sadjadpour)说，“如果国会觉得有必要实施更多制裁，做到这一点的最好方式就是形成威慑——基本上说，如果伊朗重新开启已经停止的活动，美国就会施加新的制裁。”