Patrick Smyth: Obama faces tough battle to get Iran deal through Congress

It would not be unusual for members of the US Congress to vote against an international agreement, denouncing it with rhetorical flourishes as appalling for the nation and world, only for many of their number to be working assiduously to ensure its passage. Classic Washington politics .

Take Mitch McConnell, the veteran Republican Senate leader who bitterly opposed Obama's New START deal with Russia on nuclear weapon reductions, while at the same time quietly ensuring enough of his party would cross the floor to guarantee ratification.

There's something of the same game going on now with ratification of the controversial Iran nuclear deal struck in July. Some Republicans certainly believe it's a sell-out and unlikely to prevent Iran arming itself with a nuclear weapon. Safe in the knowledge, however, that it is unlikely that the deal's opponents will be able to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to overcome an Obama veto, many Republicans are indulging themselves in an orgy of partisan hate-Iran-love-Israel rhetoric for the presidential election season. The merits of the deal are largely academic.

But, while several of the Republican presidential hopefuls have vowed they would repudiate the deal on day one of their presidency, history would suggest that wiser counsel would probably prevail at that point. A Republican president would almost certainly learn to live with the deal, well aware that renegotiating it to produce a “better deal”, without the support of allies who regard it as good , would prove impossible.

"If the agreement collapses, the diplomatic channel will essentially be closed, Iran will probably manufacture a weapon, and the drumbeat for airstrikes will intensify," Brian Beutler writes in the New Republic . Not a prospect any new president would relish.

Mischief

Many of the same Republican politicians would privately acknowledge the importance of the separation of powers and of letting the president run foreign policy relatively unhindered – there are, after all, occasionally Republicans in the White House – but the cumbersome, gridlocked procedures of Congress provide too tempting an opportunity for mischief to be forgone. And then there’s rich Jewish donors to be courted.

The most notable of the few Democratic defections to the anti-deal camp also have to be seen in this light. New York's Chuck Schumer, renowned for what one writer calls his "unreconstructed pro-Israel hawkishness", has cast his lot with the Republicans . But 25 Democrats to date have explicitly supported the agreement, with only two opposed. If Obama vetoes a resolution of disapproval, it will take 34 senators to override his veto and block the agreement. That means opponents have to find an unlikely 11 more Democrats.

In the House, if Republicans vote unanimously to override, they would need to get at least 44 Democrats on side.

Back Israel

Despite their traditional predisposition to back Israel come what may, Democrats also have a default tendency to “back our president”, although two months ago they did rebel against his free-trade agenda. It passed, however, with strong Republican support.

Potential Democratic defectors may also be influenced by declining public support for the Iran deal – last week, Gallup found the president’s approval rating for his handling of Iran down at 33 per cent while an August Quinnipiac survey recorded that only 28 per cent approved of the deal, while 57 per cent disapproved. Only 52 per cent of Democrats backed it, with particularly strong party opposition in areas where Jewish voters are concentrated, like New York and Florida.

The pressure on Schumer to back the president has been ramped up with veiled threats from White House sources that his rebellion may cost him his cherished ambition to lead the Democrats in the Senate. (His grandstanding has prompted sharp rebukes from some colleagues, notably recently from former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine who observed that “Sharing a media market with Chuck Schumer is like sharing a banana with a monkey. Take a little bite of it, and he will throw his own faeces at you.” Ouch.)

Importantly a key figure on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rhode Island’s Jack Reed, has rallied to the deal with an appeal geared as much to fellow senators as to the public: “As this debate continues, I urge Americans to pay less attention to overheated rhetoric, and instead, listen to our leading scientists, active and former military officers, diplomats, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and non-partisan experts who’ve studied the facts and concluded that this agreement is ‘stringent,’ ‘technically sound,’ and the most effective means available to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Obama still has a battle on his hands but, with fair winds, it appears likely he will prevail and notch up an important legacy achievement.