Top Democrat in Intelligence Committee backs Iran deal

The top Democrat on the US House Intelligence Committee said he’s backing the international accord to curb Iran’s nuclear power.

Rep. Adam Schiff, who is Jewish, said Monday he supports the agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from billions of dollars in sanctions. The announcement is a boost for President Barack Obama during Congress’s 60-day review period. The Republican-led Congress is expected to vote in September for a resolution of disapproval that Obama has vowed to veto.

The president is counting on Democrats to sustain his veto.

Schiff said the deal “realistically precludes Iran from developing an atomic bomb” for at least 15 years.

Congressional Democrats are increasingly confident that they will have the one-third votes in either chamber to defend a presidential veto against any legislative bid to overturn the Iran nuclear deal.

“More and more of them (House Democrats) have confirmed to me that they will be there to sustain the veto,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi told reporters, according to Reuters.

When the House went to recess last week, Reuters noted, “no senior Democrat in the chamber had come out formally against the agreement and several central figures, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, were strongly in favor.”

Pelosi was among those saying they were confident the veto would survive in Congress.

The deal curtails Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions. Critics, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a majority of Israeli coalition and opposition leaders, worry that the limits on that program do not go far enough, and that Iran will not face meaningful ramifications if it breaks the agreement. Supporters, including Obama and his cabinet in Congressional testimony in recent weeks, have insisted the deal is a good one, and will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons for over a decade.

Many Jewish Democrats, facing staunch opposition from some of the most active members of the American Jewish community, remain on the fence, including Senator Chuck Schumer and Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, both influential members of their respective chambers’ foreign affairs committees.

“There’ll be a lot of pressure on Democrats to support the president,” Engel told Reuters.

Engel has met with both sides, sitting down with Obama in the Oval Office last Wednesday, and with Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer at the Capitol the next day.

He said it would be “very tough” to win over enough Democrats to override the president’s veto. But when asked if he would vote to override, Engel said, “I’m considering it.”