House Rejects Iran Deal in Symbolic Vote

Also Plans to Vote to Forbid Obama Implementing Pact

The House of Representatives has voted today on the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, rejecting the bill 162-249. The vote has no practical impact, as the Senate failed in a cloture vote yesterday, and subsequently will not be passing a resolution on the pact before the deadline.

The 60-day deadline for Congressional review of the deal expires on Thursday, and the House vote is yet another failure, since they failed again to get a veto-proof majority needed to override a promised presidential veto.

The House is also planning to pass another resolution which will forbid the president from lifting any sanctions on Iran until after the 2017 inauguration. This would effectively prevent the US from abiding by the Iran deal, though there has been no indication the Senate will address this attempt, and again it probably won’t get a veto-proof majority.

Beyond that, House Republicans are also talking about filing a lawsuit trying to get the court to forbid the US from complying with the Iran deal on the grounds that the White House never provided them with copies of confidential IAEA deals with Iran. This too seems a long-shot, but reflects the Congressional leaders’ determination, after losing the battle on blocking the deal, to keep trying to undermine it.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.