Congress to Obama: 'Stop with the carrots & stop engaging Iran!'

Was all that cuddling & engaging?

"... Indeed, some of the most heated language on Iran has been coming from lawmakers. And while the toughest response has been from Republicans, Democrats also have been expressing growing impatience with the administration’s policy of trying to engage Iran ... 
For years, the Obama administration — and the Bush administration before it — has tried to press Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions, renounce terrorism and take some sincere steps toward engagement. The strategy has involved a combination of economic and political incentives on the one hand (WHERE? WHEN?) and economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure on the other.
Since the disruption of the murder-for-hire plot, there have been more (again, the carrots?) sticks... There are calls for more sanctions, including against top Iranian officials and entities not yet targeted and against the Central Bank of Iran.
But beyond the sanctions, there are growing questions about whether the administration needs to take an even bolder strategy — more sticks and fewer carrots. The problem is, with little talk of military action or a blockade on Iran’s oil industry, it’s unclear what that strategy might be.
What is clear to many lawmakers is that increasing pressure on Iran through sanctions, even when done in coordination with international allies, may never produce meaningful change.
“You know, it sounds like more and more carrots to Iran, to me,” Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) said at Friday’s hearing. “It seems to be painfully obvious that our policy not only remains unchanged, but that it has failed to achieve our core objective.”