The Senate appears on the verge of having a veto-proof majority to pass legislation empowering Congress to approve a final Iran deal but there's a catch. President Barack Obama is all but certain to veto any joint resolution if it forbidshim from lifting statutory sanctions.
One of the lines of criticism coming from the White House and its allies overlegislation (S 615) from Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is that it could be misused by Republicans for ideological or partisan reasons to reject a sensible nuclear agreement and deny Obama the biggest foreign policy win of his presidency.
But that argument does not appear to hold up to scrutiny given that the president has a double veto over the bill, which would forbid Obama from lifting congressionally-imposed sanctions on Iran, if Congress passes a joint resolution rejecting a final nuclear agreement with Tehran as part of the veto override process.
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"The Corker-Menendez bill is not designed to undermine a final agreement because it's going to require bipartisan support to withstand a presidential veto," said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is backing the bill. "By the nature of its very design, it appeals to Senate Democrats looking for both a vote on a deal and a way to ensure smart, sanctions relief transparency and enforcement."
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