John Kerry optimistic about Congress support for Iran n

Kerry also warned that the U.S. could lose its military standing in the world should Congress reject the deal and insist its allies concede to U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Gary Samore, who was forced to step down as president of the lobbying group United Against Nuclear Iran because he supports the agreement, said an ongoing power struggle between Congress and the White House has crowded out the “pragmatic center” of legislators and citizens who might find merit with the deal.

Schumer was one of 98 senators who voted in favor of authorizing the Iran deal before anyone had even had an opportunity to read it.

“In the first 10 years, there are serious weaknesses”.

The dispute goes to the heart of the questions that American lawmakers are considering as they prepare to vote on the nuclear accord.

They said by rejecting the deal reached with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China “would weaken the deterrent value of America’s military option”. The agreement will be monitored constantly by the worldwide Atomic Energy Agency, which can demand inspections of Iran’s facilities any time.

Republicans are nearly universally opposed at this point.

“If we turn around and nix the deal and then tell them, ‘You’re going to have to obey our rules and sanctions anyway, ‘ that is a recipe, very quickly … for the American dollar to cease to be the reserve currency of the world”, Kerry said at a Reuters Newsmaker event.

Now that the pact has been finalized, Kerry said such a heavy-handed approach was an option no longer.

Engel, pointing to Iran’s support of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime in Syria, and the rebels in Yemen, asked, “Can you imagine how much more destructive that they can be if they are awash in cash?” It does so by imposing a series of physical limits on Iran’s nuclear program, especially its production of the fissile material it would require to make a bomb. Frustrated as he may be by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lapses in diplomacy, the president should know better than to dish up the kind of rhetoric that the crazies feed on.

“But I’m telling you, there’s a huge antipathy out there” to U.S. leadership, Kerry said.

Under the terms of the deal, Iran will significantly reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium and centrifuges.

“While the deal isn’t ideal, there is no viable alternative”, Payne said. Schumer persuasively concludes that though the agreement says Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons, its provisions do not offer that practical assurance. The choice is that stark.

He said he didn’t think Schumer’s decision would hurt his chances of becoming minority leader, a position Durbin once considered.

He write that, “Attempting to cheat on this agreement would carry an overwhelming likelihood of getting caught”, and that, “As sanctions are lifted, the non-nuclear threat to the region may grow”, and there will be a need to bolster support for regional allies, including Saudi Arabia and Israel.