Flake out: lone Republican senator undecided on Iran deal will not back it

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/15/jeff-flake-republican-senator-iran-deal

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The Arizona senator Jeff Flake, the lone Republican in the upper house to have been considering support for the Iran nuclear deal, announced plans on Saturday to vote no. The decision dealt a significant blow to the White House’s efforts to garner bipartisan backing.

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Flake, a freshman who had praised Barack Obama for seeking a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, had been publicly undecided, making him a top target of the White House’s concerted lobbying campaign. Senate vote-counters had considered him the only truly undecided GOP vote, although his fellow Republicans had expressed confidence he would oppose the agreement.

“I cannot vote in support of this deal,” Flake said on Saturday.

In a statement issued while Congress was on its August recess, Flake said he was concerned that the deal severely limited lawmakers’ ability to sanction Iran for activities unrelated to its nuclear programme. Obama has argued that multilateral sanctions under the United Nations umbrella will be lifted under the deal, but that the US will retain sanctions punishing Iran for other issues like human rights and its support for extremist groups like Hezbollah.

“As written, this agreement gives Iran leverage it currently doesn’t have,” Flake said.

Flake’s opposition to the deal all but guarantees that no Republicans – at least in the Senate – will back the deal, which Obama hopes will form a cornerstone of his foreign policy legacy by preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon for more than a decade. The White House offered no specific reaction to Flake’s announcement, but pointed out that in the last week seven Democrats have announced their support.

All told, 20 Senate Democrats have backed the deal, with only New York’s Chuck Schumer opposing it. Forty-six House Democrats have supported the deal, compared to 10 who are opposed.

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Flake, who has bucked Republican leadership on a number of issues in his first Senate term, had commended the administration for seeking alternatives to military action, inspiring optimism at the White House that he might back the final deal. Just a day earlier, Flake traveled to Cuba with Secretary of State John Kerry to attend the flag-raising at the reopened US embassy in Havana, another foreign policy move by Obama that most Republicans oppose.

Yet Flake has been the target of a weeklong barrage of attack ads running in Phoenix featuring a former soldier who was wounded in Iraq by an Iranian-made bomb. The soldier, whose face is badly scarred, said those who vote for the deal will “be held accountable”.

“They will have blood on their hands,” the soldier said in the ad.

Congress has until 17 September to vote on a resolution either approving or disapproving of the Iran deal. Although Obama does not need explicit congressional approval, the resolution could scuttle the deal by blocking his ability to lift harsh economic sanctions – the key concession that got Iran to agree to the deal.