While only 25% support White House’s Iran Deal, 2 more Democratic Senators acquiesce to pressure from ‘Lame Duck President’ rather than represent their local states.

A clear majority of Americans — 55% — oppose the nuclear deal with Iran, while only 25% support it, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll published this week.

The poll also found that 56% of Americans think the deal will make the world less safe, while only 28% think it will make the world safer.

Demonstrators at a July rally in New York City against the nuclear deal with Iran – Photo: AP

Despite the American public’s lack of support for the deal, U.S. President Barack Obama is just one Senate vote shy of being able to declare success on the deal and cement a major foreign policy achievement.

Senate support for the deal now stands at 33 votes, thanks to announcements on Tuesday from Democrats Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Chris Coons of Delaware.

Once supporters reach 34 votes, they will be able to uphold Obama’s expected veto of Republican legislation aimed at blocking the Iran deal. That disapproval resolution is set for a vote later this month.

Secretary of State John Kerry is sending a letter to all Congress members outlining U.S. security commitments to Israel and the Gulf Arab states in light of the deal. The letter comes as Kerry prepares to deliver a major policy speech on Wednesday in Philadelphia that will focus on how the deal supposedly makes the U.S. and its allies safer and how it is allegedly being mischaracterized by some of its opponents.

With opposition to the agreement failing to get traction on the Democratic side, supporters may even be able to muster the 41 votes needed to block the resolution from coming to a vote in the first place, sparing Obama from having to use his veto. That would require eight of the 11 remaining undeclared senators to decide in favor of the deal.

“This agreement will substantially constrain the Iranian nuclear program for its duration, and compared with all realistic alternatives, it is the best option available to us at this time,” Casey said in a statement.

And speaking at the University of Delaware, Coons said, “I will support this agreement despite its flaws because it is the better strategy for the United States to lead a coalesced global community in containing the spread of nuclear weapons.”

Republican Congress members and presidential candidates unanimously oppose the deal, which aims to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. The Israeli government is vehemently against it, contending that concessions made to Iran could empower that country, which has sworn to destroy Israel.

On the other side of the aisle, only two Democratic senators have come out against the deal — Chuck Schumer of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey — while in recent weeks other undeclared Democratic senators have broken in favor of the deal one after another.

The disapproval resolution would be sure to pass the Republican-controlled House, but there, too, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has pledged to muster enough votes to sustain Obama’s veto — which could only be overturned with two-thirds votes in both chambers.

Even if Congress proves able to pass the disapproval resolution, that might not be enough to stop the deal, which was agreed to by Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. In July, the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed the deal, approving a resolution that would lift the international sanctions on Iran in 90 days.

View original Israel Hayom publication at:
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=28019