US Congress cannot shoot down Iran nuclear agreement: Journalist

The Republican-dominated US Congress is unable to shoot down the nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, an investigative journalist says.

“[US Secretary of State John] Kerry told our source that the Americans are absolutely confident that they have enough votes in Congress to scupper any possibility of Congress trying to interfere with the deal,” said Pepe Escobar, a correspondent with Asia Times Online, a Hong Kong-based online newspaper.

“So this is for a while now; they know they can win in Capitol Hill, and they launched already [a campaign in this regard]. They are tweeting like crazy, selling the deal to everybody in the US,” he told Press TV during a phone interview on Tuesday.

Escobar made the remarks after Iran and the P5+1 group - the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany - reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, which will put limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the removal of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

According to the JCPOA text, Iran will be recognized by the United Nations as a nuclear power and will continue its uranium enrichment program.

The 159-page document has been presented to the US Congress, which now has up to 60 days to review the text and vote to either approve or disapprove of it.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he would veto any legislation from lawmakers that "prevents the successful implementation of the deal."

Most Republicans oppose the nuclear agreement with Iran, but they need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress to override a possible presidential veto.

Escobar, the author of the Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War, said the negative response to the Iranian nuclear agreement from “the usual suspects” --Zionist lobby, the Saudi Arabian lobby, sections of the military-industrial complex and the corporate media—was "predictable."

“But they are not going to do anything to turn this down. This won’t be shot down in Congress for sure,” he stated.

“This is what the Obama administration told [Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad] Zarif and Iranian negotiators in Vienna. So, they are absolutely sure that they can win,” added Escobar, who said he was in Vienna for nine days as talks were underway.

“I was very privileged because I had direct access to the Iranian diplomats and negotiators,” he said. “I had a pretty good handle of what was really going on at the negotiating table.”

Escobar pointed out that the famous double summit of BRICS countries and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Ufa, Russia, had influenced the Iranian nuclear talks in Vienna.

The journalist explained that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s meeting with his Russian and Chinese counterparts in Ufa sent a message to the United States that the Russians, the Chinese, and the Iranians are “planning their future integration of Eurasia, whatever [would] happen in Vienna.”

“So they finally got the message… and the Americans decided to go for the final push” to conclude the nuclear talks,  said Escobar, whose writings have focused on Central Asia and the Middle East, and has covered Iran on a continuous basis since the late 1990s.

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