Megathread: Congressional Vote on the Iran Deal

[Blair]

I have a feeling that Booker is going to vote against it

[Blair]

Why is Wyden undecided/leaning towards no? Looking at his record he seems like a generic progressive-who voted against Iraq in 2003 and voted against re-approving the patriot Act in 2006

[Blair]

Interesting article on the post about it

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/01/chris-coons-backs-iran-deal-putting-obama-on-the-brink-of-a-major-diplomatic-victory/

[Blair]

There's been a lot of discussion about how the opposition effort, which was supposed to put Democrats in a tight bind, has fallen flat. Does anyone think Trump contributed to this? Trump saturated the airwaves all summer long, taking attention away from the debate over this agreement.

At this point, I'm curious if some of the undecideds vote no, because the votes are already there to uphold a veto.

Partly, I read that most of it's been focused on the east coast which could explain Schumer and Mendenez, although they've always been the most likely to vote against. There's been some debate about the general failure of AIPAC and the other more hawkish Israeli lobby groups

[Blair]

Booker was always someone I doubted so I'm glad he's firm.

Any word on Manchin? I heard he's leaning yes

[Blair]

Well, it's bad when a Senator who is in a foreign policy position considers the foreign policy deal bad.

Well John Bolton is trotted out as a 'Foreign Policy expert' and he's clearly got no idea what he's talking about half the time, actually most of time tbh

Ugh, f**king Cardin, now filibuster is probably out of reach. In Maryland, a primary challenge might be worth a try.

Good luck trying to primary someone based on their opposition to a deal that the vast majority of the public opposes, especially when he's not even helping to kill the deal.

Vast Majority? That's taking it a bit too far

[Blair]

I wish Colin Powell hadn't served as Bush's Secretary of State, because otherwise he's always been a good voice on post cold war foreign policy

[Blair]

Here comes War.

Honestly, what the f*k is your opposition to the deal, you obviously don't want peace or diplomacy with the deal.

(1)My opposition is this you know how much money the United States gives to Iran in this deal $100 BILLION, (2) we never rescued or 4 American Hostages so there still stuck in some prison in Iran, we allowed them to keep many centrifuges etc. And we did this with a country that calls America the big Satan and Israel the little satan. And Ayatollah Khamani said yesterday on Twitter that Israel won't exist in 25 years. Israel won't be quite again and they will fight and drag the world into war.

1.) Strawman point-the $100 billion cited has never actually been backed up iirc, and regardless of what the US does the sanctions from the UN/EU would rollback so it would just be a US sanction (which worked wonders in the 1980's!) The whole point of these sanctions was to stop them getting nuclear weapons, which the deal does. Why the hell would you not withdraw sanctions after they agreed to a historic deal with there sworn enemies-Iran even talking with the US is like the US talking to Al-Qaeda after 9/11.

2.) Hostages? At least one of them worked for the CIA Regardless I don't understand why this should stop a nuclear deal taking place. The previous policy of doing nothing clearly didn't help the hostages at all did it? People are using this deal to basically shout about how awful Iran is-we know it's awful, we know that they have different geopolitical aims but that doesn't mean that we should stop ourself from reaching an agreement.

3.) we allowed them to keep many centrifuges? This deal cuts the amount of centerfuges by 2/3rds, it reduces their enriched uranium by 98% and monitors all there sites. How can they make a nuclear bomb with just centrifuges?

4.) Considering the US supported one of the worst post WW2 tyrants in the Shah of Iran, then gave Saddam Hussein chemical weapons advice, funding and aid when he attacked Iran. How can you expect them to have a good view of the USA? It was Saint Ronnie who approved all this you know