Can Republicans Swiftboat the Iran Nuclear Deal?

[eridani]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/can-republicans-swiftboat-the-iran-nuclear-deal_b_7803006.html

It's hard to see a plausible path for Republicans to block the deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions. To override a certain presidential veto of any legislation undermining the deal, they would need a two-thirds majority in both houses, and nobody has come up with a plausible story for where they can get the Democratic votes for that.

If Congress did destroy the deal, the U.S. government would be humiliated in international public opinion and the international sanctions regime on Iran would collapse. Under the deal, sanctions on Iran will be removed in an orderly way in exchange for Iranian concessions. If Congress were to destroy the deal, international sanctions on Iran would collapse in a disorderly way in exchange for no Iranian concessions, because Russia and China and others would no longer comply with the sanctions, to which they agreed on the premise that the U.S. would bargain in good faith, not renege on a deal it had agreed to.

Of course, many Republicans harbor a fantasy that if they can destroy the deal, a Republican President can get elected in 2016, invade Iran, overthrow the Iranian government, install a U.S. client regime, and we can all live happily ever after -- just like Iraq. But so far they can't sell that fairy tale to the U.S. public, and it's extremely doubtful that they can sell that fairy tale to the U.S. military and the national security establishment.

Of course, some Republicans are promising to kill the deal. The same people promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which they couldn't do, even by shutting down the U.S. government.

But a far more plausible Republican goal is to swiftboat the deal in the center of U.S. public opinion, to rob Democrats of a foreign policy diplomacy victory, to scare Democrats away from embracing the deal as an example of why a pro-diplomacy Democratic foreign policy is better for America than saber-rattling Republican foreign policy.