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With All Eyes on ISIS, Lawmakers Worry the U.S. Could Lose Focus on Iran
(Washington Post) Karoun Demirjian - Washington is all but singularly focused on how to combat and protect the country from the Islamic State. But some lawmakers say that President Obama and his administration should be paying more attention to Iran, which reportedly conducted new ballistic missile tests in November. "I understand that most of Congress and the administration are very distracted by the global refugee crisis, by the terrorist attacks in Paris, by our conflicts with ISIS," said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). "The reality is with this [Iran] deal, I'm on the administration's side, but they need to be doing more....We have to have a menu of responses that we and our allies have agreed on and that we will take. Or the Iranians will pocket it and keep moving." Republicans - including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who opposed the nuclear pact - openly worry that if the Obama administration doesn't punish Iran now, it will fail to castigate it in the future for any infractions of the Iran deal. "It is critically important that the United Nations Security Council continue to enforce the resolutions that govern Iran's acquisition and development of missile technology," Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter to Obama co-authored with Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.). "Should the UNSC fail to do so, the United States must take action on its own."