Democrats in the US Senate are split this week 22 for the nuclear agreement, just two opposed, and 22 still trying to figure out how they will vote.
President Obama needs a total of 34 senators to prevent the Senate from overriding his planned veto of legislation to kill the Iran deal. That means he needs 12 of the 22 still on the fence.
Few pundits in Washington doubt he will get the dozen more votes he needs. In fact, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell this week told people in a speech in his home state of Kentucky that Obama had “a great likelihood of success” in blocking the GOP effort to kill the deal.
Some analysts believe the GOP is perfectly happy with that outcome. “That’s the political ideal for the Republicans,” one said. “If everything goes well with the deal, the issue will disappear and everyone will soon forget who voted against it. On the other hand, if Iran cheats or starts spending a fortune supporting groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, the GOP can use that to flay the Republican nominee in next year’s presidential race and use it to leverage victory.”
Others suspect the Islamic Republic will mind its manners until after the November 2016 presidential election just so the GOP cannot use Iran as a lever to bring a president hostile to Iran to power in Washington.
This week, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey became only the second Democrat to announce his opposition to the deal. That had long been expected. But almost every day this past week, another Democrat has announced support for the agreement.
Of the 22 Democrats who remain on the fence, not even one has indicated he is leaning in the direction of opposition.
On the Republican side of the Senate, only one of the 54 members, Jeff Flake of New Mexico, had hinted he might side with President Obama. But last week, Flake announced he would vote against the agreement. It is now expected that the GOP will vote like a solid brick wall against the deal.
Under the Constitution, a two-thirds majority of each chamber is required to override a veto. It currently looks like both houses will sustain the veto. So far, a mere nine Democrats in the House of Representatives have come out against the deal.
Fierce public lobbying efforts continue on both sides of the issue. One television ad placed by Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, a Jewish lobby group, shows Ahmad Batebi, a student protester arrested in Iran in 1999 and tortured. In the ad he says, “Iran had signed a treaty banning torture, but they did it anyway. Now they’ve signed a deal promising no nuclear weapons, but they keep their nuclear facilities and ballistic missiles. What do you think they’ll be doing?”