Special to WorldTribune.com

In a year of bowing to Iran, the Obama administration had one more capitulation in its bag.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Dec. 23 said a new U.S. law putting visa restrictions on Iranians and those who had visited Iran would, if implemented, breach the nuclear deal between Teheran and world powers.

In the spirit of holiday gift giving, however, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the administration of President Barack Obama could easily help Iran skirt the new restrictions passed by Congress.

In a letter to Zarif, Kerry said: “I am also confident that the recent changes in visa requirements passed in Congress, which the Administration has the authority to waive, will not in any way prevent us from meeting our [nuclear deal] commitments, and that we will implement them so as not to interfere with legitimate business interests of Iran.”

Kerry assured Zarif that the U.S. would “adhere to the full measure of our commitments. To this end, we have a number of potential tools available to us, including multiple entry ten-year business visas, programs for expediting business visas, and the waiver authority provided under the new legislation.”

Republicans tore into Kerry and the White House.

“Instead of bending over backwards to try to placate the Iranian regime, the White House needs to be holding it accountable for its recent missile tests, its continued support for terrorism, and its wrongful imprisonment of Americans,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said in a statement to FoxNews.com.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Kerry was proposing a “blanket” waiver to accommodate Iran.
“Contrary to what the Secretary of State seems to be saying to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, it was not and has never been Congress’s intent to allow the administration to grant a blanket waiver to travelers from Iran in order to facilitate the implementation of the Iran deal,” McCarty said in a statement.

“Instead of undermining Congressional intent regarding the visa waiver program, the White House should instead focus on Iran’s repeated violations of the UN Security Council’s bans on missile tests,” McCarthy said. “Iran’s unwillingness to follow these international agreements should be a red flag that the Iran nuclear deal isn’t worth the paper it is written on.”

Omri Ceren, with the Washington, D.C.-based Israel Project, told The Washington Free Beacon that “according to the Obama administration’s latest interpretation, the nuclear deal allows Iran to test ballistic missiles in violation of international law, but does not allow Congress to prevent terrorists from coming into the United States.”

The visa restrictions measure, signed into law by Obama on Dec. 18, also applies to Iraq, Syria and Sudan.

  Kerry again bows to Iran on new visa rules, WorldTribune.com