President Hassan Rouhani on Friday felicitated Iranians on the blessed occasion of Eid al-Fitr as well as on the nuclear agreement reached with world powers on July 14 in Vienna, IRNA reported.
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Obama and Netanyahu also spoke on the phone Tuesday following the announcement of the deal.
The agreement is a political triumph for Obama, who has made outreach to America’s enemies a hallmark of his presidency, but it is also seen as his biggest foreign policy gamble since taking office in 2009.
Two-thirds of all House Republicans have signed onto a resolution disapproving of the Iran nuclear agreement, language that is likely to get a vote in early September after members spend weeks pouring over the deal. A congressional defeat of the accord would only maintain sanctions put in place by Congress.
While US Republicans punched holes in the nuclear deal and dubbed it as unacceptable, Israeli PM Netanyahu called it a “historic mistake”.
Christie said Obama’s presentation of the inspection process amounts to deception. The “liar in chief” assures us that the nuclear deal with Iran is “not built on trust, but on verification”. The USA president, when pressed, said he has no intention of going.
Obama, at a news conference on Wednesday, shrugged off such concerns, saying that the USA arms embargo would remain in effect and that the United States and its partners would still have other ways of preventing Iran from acquiring and sending weapons to militant groups.
“The bottom line is this: This nuclear deal meets the national security interests of the United States and our allies”.
Vice President Joe Biden met Democrats on Capitol Hill for the second day in a row to make the administration’s case.
He added that it would be hard to erase traces of a nuclear facility even if Iran tried to hide it within 24 days.
The president challenged critics to come up with a better alternative to the deal, and suggested if their alternative is to rein in Iran through military force, they should be willing to say that.
American lawmakers have 60 days to review the deal.
Republicans will probably need 13 Democrats from the Senate and 43 from the House to break ranks and oppose the deal in order to override Obama’s veto.
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The odds that they could muster enough support to overrule an Obama veto are slim, though if he has to resort to such a move it would underscore the deep divisions in Washington.
