Telling us what we knew, Shaun Waterman reports that the 112th Congress “will seek to hold the Obama administration’s feet to the fire on the implementation of sanctions against Iran, undercutting the president’s diplomatic efforts to stifle Tehran’s nuclear ambitions”:

[A Republican House] staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Iran issue, and especially the implementation of new sanctions legislation, likely would be near the top of the committee’s agenda. Republicans had “hoped for hearings this fall,” the staffer said. “There is a long list of questions about how [the new sanctions] are being enforced.”

“That witness chair is going to be a very hot seat,” predicted one Democratic government official, who asked for anonymity.

Earlier this year, Congress passed the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act with overwhelming bipartisan support, expanding existing sanctions against Tehran to include gasoline sales and energy-sector technology. [...]

The Republican House staffer said Republicans would be “willing to call out the administration when we don’t feel the intent of the [Iran sanctions] legislation is being honored.”

Israeli Iran analyst Meir Javedanfar sounds a warning, writing that if the GOP is “truly concerned about the dangers of a nuclear Iran, it needs to help, not hinder, Barack Obama’s approach toward the country”:

The fact is that whatever gripes Republicans may have about Obama’s domestic policies, his diplomatic drive and consensus building in the international community has done considerable damage to the Iranian regime’s global standing, as well as its business interests. Indeed, after only two years in office, Obama has done more to undermine the regime of Ali Khamenei over the course of two years than George W. Bush did in eight.

Javedanfar concludes, “The drive to stop the Iranian regime from acquiring the bomb is a bi-partisan issue. If the incoming U.S. Congress wants a peaceful solution, then it’s essential that it treats it as one.”

But that’s really the problem, as it’s quite clear that those at the helm of Republican Iran policy — which includes many of the same people who were at the helm of conservative Iraq policy — either dismiss the possibility of a peaceful solution, or just place greater value on politically damaging the president than they do on getting Iran policy right. For the second group, the possibility that their aggressive approach could undercut President Obama’s efforts to foster international consensus against Iran and push us down the path to war is just collateral damage. For the first, it’s the goal.

Earlier this week, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sharply criticized the Israeli government after it announced plans to build more than 1,000 Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. “This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations,” Obama said, while Clinton called the move “counterproductive.” Indeed, the Israelis in 2003 agreed to freeze all settlement activity to jumpstart the peace process and the Palestinians refuse to engage in direct talks in the absence of a freeze.

Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday in New York for more than seven hours without producing any diplomatic breakthroughs, though veteran Middle East negotiator Aaron Miller said that the length of the meeting was a good sign that the two leaders were “ironing out differences.” Politico’s Laura Rozen reports that in an “unusual, if not unheard of” move, Netanyahu also met Wednesday with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA). Cantor’s office stated that the presumptive Majority Leader would fight the Obama administration on behalf of Israel:

Regarding the midterms, Cantor may have given Netanyahu some reason to stand firm against the American administration.

“Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington,” the readout continued. “He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.”

Rozen also noted that a “veteran observer of U.S.-Israeli relations Ron Kampeas said he found that statement ‘an eyebrow-raiser.’” “I can’t remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president,” Kampeas wrote, later adding, “I have it on good authority that as late as last week, Bibi’s people were at pains to deny that such a meeting would take place.”

While Cantor’s office later told Kampeas that it disputes his interpretation of what Cantor’s office said happened in the meeting, this isn’t the first time Cantor has undermined the Obama administration’s policy on Israel. On a congressional delegation visit to Israel last year, Cantor offered support for Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and countered Clinton’s criticism of Israel’s handling of the eviction of two Arab families from a house in East Jerusalem earlier that week. “I don’t think we, in America, would want another country telling us how to implement and execute our laws,” Cantor said.

As the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss has repeatedly noted, the Israelis agreed to a total settlement freeze in the 2003 Roadmap for Middle East peace and that “since then, Israel has consistently and spectacularly failed to honor that commitment.” With Cantor getting Netanyahu’s back at the expense of official U.S. policy, it doesn’t seem likely that the Israelis will have much incentive to change course.

For more on Obama’s Israel policy, see today’s Progress Report, “Obama’s Pro-Israel Record.”

Over the next month we will learn if Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) is a smart political operator with genuine ideological convictions or a fraud that is nothing more than a politically craven partisan hack. It really is either all one or the other.

Throughout the START ratification process, Kyl has gotten much of what he has wanted. He has slowed, if not stalled, the larger nuclear agenda and he has gotten a massive increase in the nuclear weapons budget. All this for a modest treaty that essentially maintains the status quo. And the worst thing is that Kyl hasn’t even had to say whether he will support the treaty or even permit his sheepish Republican colleagues to vote they way they want. So in one sense, this seems like a typical case of the Administration making a preemptive concession without ensuring that the Republicans will deliver.

But the Obama administration has just unveiled a very big stick. In the Financial Times, a senior Administration official confirms that if the New START treaty is not ratified, the nuclear weapons funding that Kyl has pursued so desperately will be scrapped. The FT writes:

His [the Obama] administration is now making clear the stockpile plans are also at stake… “There is a risk that not moving ahead with Congress could shatter the fragile consensus on modernising the nuclear complex,” said a senior administration official. “New Start puts nuclear modernisation in the right context for those who worry how it could send the wrong signal to the world and undermine our non-proliferation efforts.”

Oh snap! I have often written about how Kyl is holding a gun to the head of New START. Well, the Administration just took a hostage of its own and is now holding a gun to the head of Kyl’s nuclear funding. If Kyl shoots New START, the White House will shoot the nuclear funding. The Administration has suddenly made this a huge test of the authenticity of Jon Kyl, since it will be up to Kyl to put the gun down first.

While Kyl has relentlessly pursued more funding for nuclear weapons, he has never said anything all that negative about the START treaty. In fact, in an op-ed this summer Kyl even called the START treaty “benign.” A year ago, as START negotiations were proceeding Kyl gave a floor speech where he warned of the dangers if the treaty expired. His staffer, Tim Morrison, even went to the Heritage Foundation last December to deplore the expiration of verification and monitoring measures. Kyl, unlike Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and the Heritage Foundation, does not seem to view the treaty with any particular malice.

So if Kyl is willing to sacrifice the nuclear funding he so vigorously pursued to kill a “benign” treaty, then everything he has said up to this point has been totally disingenuous. If Kyl kills START, then it’s clear he actually doesn’t care at all about nuclear funding, only about scoring political hits. In short, he would be a total fraud.

The Administration in this hostage scenario isn’t just holding a gun to nuclear funding. They are also holding a gun to the credibility of Senator Jon Kyl.

Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) and other conspirators would be put on civilian trial in New York City. Since then, far-right partisans have launched a fearmongering campaign against the trial, seeking to undermine the American justice system and bolster a system of questionable military courts. Earlier this year, it was reported that many of President Obama’s closest advisers have come out against a civilian trial as well, and are likely to pressure Holder to back down.

Yesterday, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group of families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks, wrote an open letter to Holder asking him not to back down from his committment to trying KSM and other alleged co-conspirators in civilian courts in New York. Referencing an earlier meeting with him that took place more than a year ago, the group writes that he told them at the time of his “personal committment to bringing these trials to open, transparent courts.” They end their letter by asking Holder to “not back off from what you know to be right”:

Attorney General Holder:

We, family members of those who died in the attacks of 9/11, entreat you to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his Guantanamo cohorts in federal courts that rely on the U.S. Constitution and the tenets of America’s 200 year-old system of justice. The location is not of consequence, although New York, Virginia, or another venue in the East where most of the families reside, would be optimum. [...]

Many of us met with you face-to-face on June 16, 2009 and you told us at that time of your personal commitment to bringing these trials to open, transparent courts. Please do not back off from what you know to be right.

The letter from the group comes on the same day that New York Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo (D) gave in to the right-wing fear campaign, telling a local radio host that he opposes trying KSM and other alleged 9/11 co-conspirators in New York City. Cuomo even went as far as to tell the radio host that he would agree to fight to keep the trial out of New York.

On Wednesday, during a press conference with reporters in Washington, Holder said that he is nearing a decision about whether to pursue civilian trials or to instead utilize military tribunals. “The process is an ongoing one,” Holder said. “We are working to make a determination about the placement of that trial. I hope that whenever the decision is, it is one that will be based on the merits and what is best for the case and justice in that case.” Watch it: