“When George W. Bush was president the Iranians mastered the nuclear fuel cycle”, she said.
Advertisement
Kerry said if the deal with Iran is ultimately rejected, Iran would move forward with its nuclear program – one that already has enough fissionable material to make 10 to 12 nuclear bombs.
After the meeting, Hoyer, who claims he is still undecided about the Iran agreement, said it was clear that the Israeli premier anticipated a “no” vote in the US Congress. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said as much.
Despite the undecided Democrats on the trip and the high-profile opposition of the Senate’s No. 3 Democrat, Chuck Schumer, announced last week, the President can still probably breathe easy on his vacation when it comes to the votes needed to on his legacy-sealing agreement curbing Tehran’s nuclear program.
Democrats could block an override in the Senate with 34 votes. “But if you think they’re going to be the same awful regime they are now, you don’t want the United States and the other nations of the world putting the stamp of approval on Iran being a threshold nuclear state”.
“The armed forces have the most concerns about the effect of the deal on Iran’s defence capabilities… but this agreement and the UN Security Council resolution have many advantages that the critics ignore”, said the general, who is a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
At a news conference at Braddock Bay Monday, Senator Schumer said he studied the Iran deal carefully before making a final decision.
It’s sponsored by United Against Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group co-founded in 2008 by Mark Wallace, a former US ambassador to the UN during the George W. Bush administration. It could use the deal to get rid of sanctions while continuing to cause trouble in the Middle East, he said.
In an interview with NPR, Obama’s tone was restrained, but his words were not.
Huckabee’s remarks were a response to President Obama’s efforts to defend the Iran deal a day earlier. John McCain argued Monday that Obama has “cheapened” the U.S. presidency with his rhetoric in support of the deal.
The White House also played up a letter composed by 29 leading U.S. scientists, many of them Nobel laureates and experts in nuclear weapons and arms control, sent to the president over the weekend. The reality is that basically every serious scholar of global relations agrees that nuclear weapons are deterrents, not weapons of aggressive war.
“Senator Barack Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who I think can do great things for our country in the years ahead, but, my friends, eloquence is no substitute for a record, not in these tough times for America”, Lieberman said at the convention. Steve Israel and Nita Lowey of New York and Ted Deutch of Florida.
Advertisement
So far, only 34 House members, all Democrats, have announced support, along with 17 Democratic senators. If the Republican majorities in Congress vote as a bloc against it, they will need 44 Democrats in the House of Representatives and 13 in the Senate to knock down the veto.
