Earnest all but encouraged Senate Democrats to consider Schumer’s opposition to the pact when they vote next year to elect a new Democratic leader.
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Schumer, who is Jewish, also is a strong supporter of Israel and represents a state with a significant population of Jewish voters.
“While inspectors would likely be able to detect radioactive isotopes at a site after 24 days, that delay would enable Iran to escape detection of any illicit building and improving of possible military dimensions (PMD) - the tools that go into building a bomb but don’t emit radioactivity”, Schumer said.
Earnest recalled that when the sanctions were originally put in place US officials traveled around the world “including to India, sat down with the Indian government and asked them to curtail the amount of Iranian oil that they imported into the country”.
“If Iran’s true intent is to get a nuclear weapon, under this agreement, it must simply exercise patience”, Schumer argued. Some pro-Israel groups have also been spending millions of dollars on an advertising campaign to push members of Congress to vote no.
Since then, the Obama administration has waged a massive lobbying effort to persuade Democrats to back the plan.
Chuck Schumer, the most influential Jewish Democrat in Congress, came out against President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, striking a crippling blow to one of Obama’s most controversial foreign policy initiatives.
“It does not offer any alterative and many people in arms control and others have actually pointed that out”.
While Schumer was no doubt torn between supporting Israel and his own party, Lustick says the Israeli lobby apparently won. Republicans are largely against the sanctions-relief-for-nuclear-restrictions deal reached July 14 between six major powers and Iran, making Democrats the battleground in the fight over whether Congress kills the bill.
Obama has promised a veto if the resolution is passed by the House and Senate. The President has vowed to reject any measure scuttling the agreement, and a majority of Democrats are needed in Congress to sustain a potential veto.
Late Thursday, amid all of the media hullabaloo surrounding the first GOP presidential primary debate of the 2016 election cycle, Democratic Sen.
“Chuck Schumer, who said it was a mistake to pass Obamacare, now comes out again the Iran Deal”, Jon Favreau, Mr Obama’s former speechwriter said. Schumers’ fellow New York Sen.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator, announced her support on Thursday, hours before the announcement by Schumer.
However, Moriarty said the UN Security Council’s unanimous decision last month to endorse the nuclear deal would make congressional rejection of the accord ineffective.
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Schumer’s split with Obama was remarkable for a senior leader in line to replace Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., after he retires at the end of next year.
