Republican legislators' months-long fight over President Obama's Iran nuclear deal has come to a close — with the Obama administration coming out on top.
The deal — an internationally-negotiated plan to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities — took effect Thursday despite Republicans' best attempts to raise a final vote on the deal in Congress.
Will Walldorf, professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University, said because the Iran Deal was not negotiated as an international treaty, the Senate was not guaranteed a vote on whether the agreement went through. But, Republicans called for the opportunity to review the agreement and propose a vote in Congress.
The House Republicans voted against the deal last week, but the Senate Republicans' past two attempts to raise a vote were blocked. They were unable to secure enough support — even with the backing of several Democrats — to have the deal brought to the floor.
And even if the Senate Republicans had obtained the vote, they would not have been able to stop the agreement, since the president had enough votes in the Senate to veto Congress' decision should it reject the deal.
“What Republicans were actually hoping for was: even if the president has veto-proof majority, at least we’ll be able to have a vote, and we’ll make this a political issue,” Walldorf said. “We can at least make the statement that the Senate voted against this measure.”
Gary Pearce, retired political consultant, said he believes the Republican pushback against the deal was based purely on bipartisan politics.
“It seems to me it’s just now a matter of political noise,” he said. “The decision is made.”
He said the rift between Republicans and Democrats over the deal is evidence of increased polarization between the parties.
“There have always been sharp divisions and strong divisions and bitter fights, but it has gone deeper than politics now,” he said. “People are very divided — and not just politically — they’re divided socially, culturally.”
Although the deal has taken effect, Walldorf said its future success remains in question.
“One of the biggest problems that could hinder the ability of the deal to work is that fact that there is so much distrust and conflict with Iran over other issues,” he said.
Walldorf said tensions between the U.S. and Iran over issues like terrorism and Israeli-Iranian relations could have negative repercussions on the status of the deal.
“(Tensions) may just cause such a breakdown in structure with the United States and other countries in the world that they could potentially back out of the deal all together.”
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