Last Effort to Derail Iran Nuclear Deal Blocked in US Senate

Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked an amendment designed to kill the Iran nuclear deal.

It was the Republicans' third attempt to derail the accord. With no further votes expected, Republicans say they will have to wait for Obama to leave office before they can renew their efforts.

"The deal can, and likely will, be revisited by the next commander in chief," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday. "But its negative consequences promise to live on regardless."

The failed GOP amendment would have required Iran to recognize Israel and release American prisoners before qualifying for sanctions relief — a key component of nuclear deal.

But the amendment faltered 53-45, with the Republican-majority Senate falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation.

Despite an intense and expensive lobbying effort against it, all but four of Obama's fellow Democrats backed the nuclear pact between the United States, five other world powers and Tehran that was announced in July.

With no more Senate votes this week, Thursday's vote ensured Congress would not be able to pass a resolution of disapproval that would have crippled the deal by eliminating Obama's ability to waive many sanctions.

Such a resolution would have had to pass both the Senate and House of Representatives by midnight Thursday, and survive Obama's veto, to be enacted.

The House, where Republicans also have a majority, never voted on the resolution, instead opting to pass three symbolic Iran-related measures that would not have affected the nuclear deal.

Two GOP presidential hopefuls, Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, missed the vote after a debate in California last night in which Republicans bashed the Iran deal. Two others, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, voted with every other Senate Republican to advance the resolution. Four Democrats — Senators Ben Cardin, Joe Manchin, Robert Menendez and Charles Schumer — voted with the Republicans all three times.

Democrats accused Republicans of staging futile votes to embarrass the White House, while wasting time that could have been spent reaching a budget compromise to avoid a government shutdown on Sept. 30.

Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell failed to lure any more Democrats into backing the disapproval resolution after it first came up in the Senate a week ago.

After two failed votes, McConnell had hoped to raise the political stakes by adding a high-stakes amendment, including the Israel issue and the American prisoners.

With Democrats objecting to adding non-nuclear issues to consideration of the deal, that procedural vote was also blocked.

Related: Americans Are Divided — And Slightly Confused — By the Iran Nuclear Deal