“This agreement“, he said, “should not be compared to an imaginary deal where Iran rolled over, and eliminated all its centrifuges and all peaceful nuclear energy generation”.
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Mr. Araghchi, effectively the number 2 negotiator for Iran in the nuclear talks behind Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, spoke ahead of President Hassan Rouhani’s live televised speech Sunday night which is expected to focus on the nuclear deal.
“I think that in some respects, they resonated those concerns”, Hoyer said.
Asked if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s forceful lobbying in the U.S. against the deal is appropriate, Obama said that he couldn’t “recall a similar example”.
The spin coming out of the White House now is that Schumer’s defection is a clear signal that a win for their side is inevitable.
Others who say they are still evaluating the agreement include Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mark Warner of Virginia, Chris Coons of Delaware, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Gary Peters of Michigan, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Jon Tester of Montana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. “What we had to do was to more severely enforce sanctions so that Iran had greater incentive to come to the table and negotiate”. Dylan Williams, the political director of J Street, a Jewish group campaigning for the Iran deal, tweeted last night, “Seeing lots of Democratic heavy-hitters noting that, unlike the #IranDeal, there are alternatives to Chuck Schumer“. Schumer had decided to oppose President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
“The public is not convinced that Congress should reject the plan, but they can’t shake their nagging doubts that Iran has the upper hand here”, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth poll. Obama’s goal is to secure enough Democratic votes to prohibit Congress from overriding his veto. In terms with Iran during the first ten years of nuclear weapons, I found the inspections regime not anywhere-anytime but with lots of holes in it. Particularly troublesome, you have to wait 24 days before you can inspect.
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The GOP clearly has the votes, and will send a disapproval measure to President Obama, in September in regard to the Iran nuclear deal. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who is poised to become his party’s leader in the Senate in 2017, and New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, announced that they would oppose the deal. Schumer is now the No 3 Democrat in the Senate and is in line to succeed Harry Reid as the party’s leader in the chamber when Reid retires in early 2017.
