President Barack Obama secured a landmark foreign policy victory Wednesday as Senate Democrats amassed enough votes to ensure the Iran nuclear deal survives in Congress despite ferocious opposition from Republicans and the government of Israel.
Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland became the crucial 34th vote in favor of the agreement.
“No deal is perfect, especially one negotiated with the Iranian regime,†Mikulski said in a statement. She called the accord “the best option available to block Iran from having a nuclear bomb. For these reasons, I will vote in favor of this deal.â€
President Barack Obama may be hoping his presidential legacy will be one of the peacemaker, worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize he won in 2009, even before he'd spent a year in the Oval Office.
Obama counts his withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, the re-opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba earlier this year, and now his landmark agreement with Iran to curtail the country's nuclear ambitions, as achievements worthy of the prize even he felt when it was awarded was premature.
what is crucial is what happens with Israel now. will Obama rush to Israel and give dem sweeteners as palliative..a hundred billion of american taxpayers money ::confused::
if non of dat happens that relationship is well on its way to being reorganized. sketchim rarse and dem will breathe sigh of relief. Obama may end the Muslim pogrom going on!
Quote:After Iraq, Democrats didn’t want to vote for war.
Ha’aretz
It’s now virtually certain that the Iran nuclear deal will survive congressional challenge. If opponents pass a bill rejecting the agreement, supporters have the votes to sustain U.S. President Barack Obama’s veto in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, a bill condemning the deal may not even garner enough votes to pass in the first place.
The interesting question is why.
The first, and most obvious, answer is that when a president really wants something in foreign policy, he’s hard to stop. After World War II, when America established a de facto global empire, the balance of power between the president and Congress tipped. The executive branch now contains a vast, semi-secret national security bureaucracy that makes split-second decisions — for instance, whether to launch a drone strike halfway across the world — without ever asking Congress. Members of Congress have become accustomed to deferring to presidents overseas in a way they don’t at home. Even when the Iraq War grew politically toxic, Congress never cut off its funding. Congress still refuses to vote on Obama’s war against ISIS; they’d rather leave it to him.
The Iran deal is unusual in that members of one party — the GOP — are refusing to show that deference. In fact, opposing the president on Iran has become a way for Republicans to rally their political base. But that merely brings us to reason number two that the deal is almost certain to pass: The more partisan the opposition to it becomes, the more Democrats rally behind Obama in response.
This is a huge problem for AIPAC. For years, the organization has worked to ensure that both Democrats and Republicans provide the Israeli government unquestioning support. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by embracing Mitt Romney in 2012, colluding with Republicans to organize a speech to Congress behind Obama’s back this spring and making Ron Dermer, a former GOP operative, his top representative in Washington, has made AIPAC’s work harder.
Honestly I'm bery happy that this passed. I know people are against it, but really, I'm 100% for avoiding conflict and ushering in peace, even if it does mean that I have to pay a few extra bucks on tax day. If this had not gone through, the situation in the Middle East would only get more intense and tenstions would continue to rise, risking ankther war that I am not wiling to be a part of. Then instead of the tax being used for keeping peace, it'll be used for weaponry. Granted, I'm not a professional diplomat, but this deal seems like the best way to go.
