Why is Bernie Sanders voting to NOT put sanctions on Russia?

[karynnj]

46. I would suggest that the 48 are buying the argument that the Iran sanctions will NOT blow up the

Iran deal. Note that John Kerry himself, the man who has spent more hours actually speaking to the Iranian foreign minister than any other American, personally spoke (tweeted) out that doing this would further inflame the situation.

Why so many Democrats?? AIPAC lobbied for this and very few Democrats have the courage to cast a vote - that will not change the result - that will get AIPAC's forces against them. I suspect that there are likely as many as those who supported the Iran deal in 2015. Remember that neither Schumer, the minority leader or Cardin, the ranking member of the Foreign Relations committee did. They are BOTH very powerful voices on this issue -- and even when Obama was President they went against their own President.

Getting the Iran deal done was an act of political courage for President Obama and a testimony to John Kerry's williness to personally take on something extremely difficult, where he used every ounce of diplomatic skill and political skill in keeping the Congress from killing it. It is working. It's sole goal was to prevent Iran from moving to become a nuclear power. It created an amazing monitoring system, thanks to the awesome Secretary Moniz and his peer. It purposely did not include any other goal - such as changing Iran's government, ending support of terrorists, or anything else. All p5 plus 1 nations were clear on this and all noted that even that goal was not an easy goal.

Having extensively read about this issue as the negotiations went on and afterward, my conclusion is that many western and especially Israeli opponents to the deal failed because they were dishonest about why they were against it. They argued it made a bomb or a war more likely -- both unbelievable with even a minimal amount of thought. Not to mention, there was the 2012 BiBi appearance at the UN with his strange poster of a bomb and his claim that Iran was 2 months or so away from getting one. There is no question that the nuclear deal closes that path for a decade and then continues to make it less likely because many parts of it last far longer. In 2015, there was a VERY high chance that a military solution would have been attempted had no deal have been reached. This was a catastrophic war avoided - and that is why the military people in Trump's NS council were the ones against him decertifying.

I remember Wendy Sherman speaking of the meeting after the announcement of the deal of all the foreign ministers involved in reaching it. All the ministers said in a few sentences what the deal meant to them. Kerry was last, and Sherman spoke of how his response of having gone to war as a young man had left him with the goal that if he ever reached a position of power, he wanted to be part of avoiding a war. She noted that he actually chocked up as he spoke of this.

President Obama and Secretary Kerry both put avoiding an imminent war ahead of any political gain or any applause - both KNEW the forces against this - from the United States. Any observation of politicians, shows just how rare that is.