Two top Democrats, including Republican Senator Mark Kirk, have begun circulating a draft of a new Iran sanctions bill that could violate the terms of an agreement struck between Iran and the United States in Geneva last month, Foreign Policy’s The Cable reports. The bill, set for introduction by the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, along with NY Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), defies the Obama administration’s repeated requests for Congress to hold off on any new legislation.

A copy of the bill – the ‘Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013’ – was obtained by Foreign Policy. The new sanctions would likely come to a vote in the Senate on Jan. 6th, 2014.

According to the report, the legislation, if passed, would broaden the scope of the sanctions already imposed against Iran, expanding the restrictions on Iran’s energy sector to include all aspects of its petroleum trade and putting in place measures targeting Iran’s shipping and mining sectors. The bill allows Obama to waive the new sanctions during the current talks by certifying every 30 days that Iran is complying with the Geneva deal and negotiating in good faith on a final agreement, as well as meeting other conditions such as not sponsoring or carrying out acts of terrorism against U.S. targets.

The bill includes a non-binding provision that states that if Israel takes “military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” the U.S. “should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.”

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(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)