Congress is growing hostile to the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, leaving President Obama with little political cover as he approaches a critical deadline in the talks, The Hill reported on Tuesday March 24th 2015.
Administration officials say they’re hoping to finalize an agreement by the end of the month. Should a deal be reached, it would transform U.S. and Iranian relations and potentially give Obama the most important foreign policy achievement of his second term.

But as details of the still-evolving talks have dribbled out of Geneva, where Secretary of State John Kerry is leading the process, lawmakers are amplifying concerns that the administration is granting too many concessions to Tehran.
The critics include not only Republicans, who have long hammered Obama’s approach to issues of war and peace, but Democrats who, echoing the concerns of Israeli leaders, say they fear the deal will leave Iran with nuclear weapons capabilities, thereby threatening allies like Israel and further destabilizing the region.
The pushback came to a head on Friday, when 367 House lawmakers wrote to Obama warning that a deal must “foreclose any pathway to a bomb” before they’ll support legislation lifting sanctions on Tehran — a near-certain condition if Iranian leaders are to agree to a deal.
“Should an agreement with Iran be reached, permanent sanctions relief from congressionally-mandated sanctions would require new legislation,” reads the letter, which was spearheaded by Reps. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“In reviewing such an agreement, Congress must be convinced that its terms foreclose any pathway to a bomb, and only then will Congress be able to consider permanent sanctions relief.”
Among those endorsing the letter were 129 Democrats — a show of rare bipartisanship in the divided 114th Congress, and one that raises plenty of questions about how much support Obama will have from his party if he reaches a deal that would almost certainly be opposed by leaders in Israel and the Republican Party.
Although top Democrats like Reps. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), James Clyburn (S.C.) and Xavier Becerra (Calif.) declined to endorse the letter, it won the support of several other prominent members, including Reps. Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Joseph Crowley (N.Y.).
Some Democrats in the upper chamber are also wary of the emerging deal. Behind Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), they’ve threatened legislation installing tougher Iran sanctions this year and are vowing a quick return to the proposal if no deal — or what they see as a bad deal — is reached.
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are united in opposing the diplomatic effort, with 47 of them endorsing an open letter to Iran that warned a nuclear deal could be revoked by the next president with the stroke of a pen.
The letter from Senate Republicans carried a far more aggressive tone than the one sent by the House, something the White House was quick to note this week.
At a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Thursday, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) confronted Antony Blinken over the negotiations, accusing the deputy secretary of State of “misleading” the panel with claims that, under the potential deal, international inspectors could keep Iran’s nuclear program in check.
“You’ve said … that, well, they can’t develop a nuclear weapon because that would be illegal,” Sherman said. “That’s a preposterous argument. Obviously, they’re willing to break the law.”