Fresh off a trip to the Middle East, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is insisting that Congress get a chance to review and approve a nuclear deal with Iran.
“To the detriment of international security […] the Obama administration has always approached the goal of these negotiations as reaching the best deal that is acceptable to Iran, rather than what should be our national goal: ending Iran’s nuclear program,” the Kentucky Republican said in a statement Monday.
McConnell visited Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Afghanistan last week with a Senate delegation. On Thursday, a framework for a nuclear deal with Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers was announced — much to the dismay of many Republican lawmakers.
Voting on the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will go forward as scheduled on April 14, McConnell assured.
“The administration needs to explain to the Congress and the American people why an interim agreement should result in reduced pressure on the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. The Senate will review these parameters more thoroughly, and respond legislatively,” he said.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and cosponsored by 21 other senators on both sides of the aisle, mandates that Congress be given a chance to review the recently reached tentative Iran nuclear agreement. The deadline for a final agreement is June 30.
President Obama warned Congress not to kill the Iran deal: “If Congress kills this deal, not based on expert analysis and without offering any reasonable alternative, then it’s the United States that will be blamed for failure of diplomacy.”
Corker said Sunday the bill is only a few votes shy of the 67 needed to override Obama’s threatened veto.
