Initial indications after Tuesday’s announcement of the nuclear pact with Iran are that Democrats in the Senate will line up to support the president on the measure.
With a mandatory congressional review period of 60 days, Republicans are strategizing on how best to maneuver a defeat of the deal on the other side of the August recess.
And the pressure is mounting for Sens. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, two of the deal’s most ardent opponents, to craft a coalition in ways that will be beneficial both against the measure and on the campaign trail.
Both members of the Senate Foreign Relations committee wherein the initial fight will reside, Rubio and Paul signaled that they will not easily acquiesce to the White House.
Paul argued in a response that the U.S. has agreed to remove economic sanctions before any proof of compliance has been offered by Iran. Similarly, Rubio promised, if elected president next year, to immediate revoke executive approval for the deal.
“It will then be left to the next president to return us to a position of American strength and re-impose sanctions on this despicable regime until it is truly willing to abandon its nuclear ambitions and is no longer a threat to international security,” he said in a statement.
November 2016 cannot come fast enough.
