Obama gains 34 senate votes on Iran nuclear deal

US President Barack Obama has received one more vote from Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski in favour of Iran’s nuclear deal on Wednesday. With this, the White House secured 34 votes backing the proposal, which was the minimum requirement to ensure no further disapproval threats on the deal.

The pact was announced in July and Mikulski’s endorsement to the deal gave Obama the power to use veto in case Congress passes a resolution against the deal in the coming months. “No deal is perfect, especially one negotiated with the Iranian regime. I have concluded that this Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the best option available to block Iran from having a nuclear bomb,” Mikulski said in a statement.

On Wednesday, State Secretary John Kerry gave a speech in Philadelphia on the deal and discussed the drawbacks of the pact. He considered this step of favouring the Iran nuclear deal as a self-destructive blow to the U.S. leadership and credibility. He focused on the agreement being based only on trust. “There is not a single sentence or paragraph in this whole agreement that depends on promises or trust. No one,” he said.

In his speech, he insisted to keep a watch on the Iranian compliance with the help of the hi-tech surveillance system installed by none other than the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.

Now that the Iranian nuclear deal has achieved 34 votes, the next aim is gathering 41 votes in the Senate so that Obama gets the power to block disapproval resolution whenever it causes trouble for the deal. If until Sep. 17, “resolution of disapproval” does not achieve the required target, it seems difficult to stop Obama from making this pact between the US, Iran and five other global powers a big success.

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