Republican senators can’t override Obama's veto of Iran legislation: Analyst

Republicans have made Iran nuclear talks such a partisan issue that they will not get enough votes in the US Senate to overturn President Barack Obama's veto of anti-Tehran legislation, an American political commentator and activist says.

Charles Coburn made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Saturday while commenting on the Obama administration’s decision to launch an outreach campaign to persuade the Republican-dominated Congress to hold its fire on Iran following an understanding reached between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 this week.

Obama and his administration have decided to convince lawmakers to suspend legislation against Iran until after June 30, the deadline for a final nuclear agreement.

Coburn said Republicans, notably Senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Mitch McConnell, are “the mouthpieces of the military-industrial complex.”

He added that Republicans are going to “do what they always do, which is shill for war, because they are owned by the people that make profit from wars.”

On Thursday, the P5+1 group – the US, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany – reached an outline of a potentially historic agreement with Iran over its civilian nuclear work that would lift all international sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic in exchange for certain steps Tehran will take with regard to its nuclear program.

Republicans have warned the Obama administration not to bypass Congress by taking the final Iran agreement straight to the United Nations.

Coburn said that “the Republican Party has absolutely zero power when it comes to an agreement within the UN. The Constitution clearly states that the president, the executive branch is the sole arbitrator within the UN.”

“And I think a lot that is what’s frustrating the Republicans is that even though they are going to be against this no matter what, there is really relatively a little they can do,” he added.

“And, two, because this has become such a partisan issue, with inviting Bibi Netanyahu, here, and Senator Tom Cotton and the 47 traitors sending a letter to Iran, that any hope that they may have had of… Senate Democrats supporting legislation, which would be ultimately vetoed, supporting legislation with enough Democrat votes to override a veto have passed,” he stated.

The two-thirds votes in the Senate are needed to overturn a presidential veto.

“That may have been a possibility, not a probability, a week or two ago, but because the Republicans have chosen to make this such a partisan issue, the chance of bipartisan support has gone,” Coburn said.

In a bizarre move last month, a group of 47 Republican senators sent an open letter to Iran’s leaders, warning that whatever agreement reached with the Obama administration would be a “mere executive agreement” and that Congress could ultimately walk away from any deal with Tehran upon review.

The White House has denounced the GOP letter as an “unprecedented” and “calculated” attempt to interfere with the Iran nuclear talks.

Senator Tom Cotton claimed that he had drafted the letter. However, independent analysts say the letter was actually written by William Kristol, his neoconservative financier.

According to reports, Cotton received one million dollars from the Emergency Committee for Israel, a neoconservative group associated with Israel lobby, just before the last US election. The group was founded in mid-2010 by Kristol.

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