Conservative House Republicans have embarked on an eleventh-hour political maneuver to derail the Iranian nuclear deal, saying they can't vote on it until the president coughs up copies of side deals Tehran negotiated with atomic inspectors.
The last-ditch effort to snarl implementation of the deal was part of a political spectacle that unfolded yesterday in Washington over one of President Barack Obama's key foreign policy initiatives.
The maneuvering and speechifying did little to change the reality: Barring unlikely success of the House Republicans' strategy, the international accord will move ahead. Even if Congress succeeds in passing legislation aimed at undermining the deal, Obama would veto it and Democrats command enough votes to sustain the veto.
Inside the Capitol, congressional Republicans turned on each other angrily as they moved closer to a vote on the deal, which gives Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for restraints to keep it from becoming a nuclear-armed state.
Outside on the lawn, Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump whipped up several thousand demonstrators with remarks harshly criticizing the deal.
"Never ever, ever in my life have I seen a deal so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran," Trump bellowed on the hot, humid afternoon.
Under legislation that Obama signed into law, Congress has 60 days, or until Sept. 17, to vote to approve or disapprove of the deal, or take no action. The congressional review law required Obama to give lawmakers copies of all documents relevant to the deal.
Responding to resistance from conservatives, Republican House leaders canceled the start of debate on a resolution to disapprove of the deal and hastily called a meeting to discuss how to move forward.
What emerged was a Plan B involving votes on several related measures: one to specify that the Obama administration had not properly submitted all the documents pertaining to the accord to Congress; a second, bound-to-fail vote to approve the deal; and a third to prevent Obama from lifting congressionally mandated sanctions on Iran. Debate and votes were to begin today.
