Democrats launch Iran deal offensive
Pro-deal senators are touting Iran's denuclearization amid continued Republican pushback.
Democrats who supported President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran say it has already defanged that country's nuclear program, and they want their constituents to know about it.
A half-dozen pro-deal lawmakers ranging from liberals to pro-Israel hawks took turns Jan. 27 on the Senate floor touting the deal's early successes and urging critics to help make it stronger. This group effort comes as Republicans highlight recent Iranian actions deemed aggressions, such as the detention of US sailors and a ballistic missile launch.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Al-Monitor that he and other Democrats “want to start fighting back against Republicans who want to rewrite the agreement.”
“Republicans continually want this agreement to be about something other than preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” said Murphy, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Near East panel. “And I don't want us to be sitting around three years from now, with the nuclear agreement having been fully implemented, and the American public thinking the agreement failed simply because Iran is still funding Hezbollah.”
