Iran Parliament Approves P5+1 Nuclear Deal

Bill Still Needs Clerical Body Approval to Pass

In a 139-100 vote, Iran’s parliament voted in favor of the P5+1 nuclear deal. The vote saw a heated debate, with Iran’s conservative bloc broadly opposed to the deal condemning the reformist government for making concessions and claiming the “American wolves” had gotten the better of the deal.

The vote is just the first of a pair of procedural votes the deal needs to pass though having passed the first it seems all but certain it will survive the second, scheduled for Tuesday. The bill also needs approval from a key clerical body before it is fully approved.

Iran is the last nation that needed to have a parliamentary vote on the deal. The US had a vote in September, voting against the deal in the House, but never managed to override a filibuster in the Senate, meaning Congress was unable to block the deal outright.

In both Iran and the US, the votes were split largely along party lines, with conservatives in both nations so comfortable with the traditional acrimony between the two nations that they sought to block the deal for fear that they couldn’t campaign on that hostility in the future.

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.