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Obama gets the needed votes in Senate for Iran deal

WASHINGTON - President Obama scored a major foreign-policy victory Wednesday after securing enough votes in the Senate to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran.

WASHINGTON - President Obama scored a major foreign-policy victory Wednesday after securing enough votes in the Senate to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran.

The agreement to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, struck by international negotiators in Vienna in July, was the subject of intense lobbying in recent weeks by both the administration and the deal's opponents in advance of an expected vote as early as next week on a resolution to block the deal's implementation.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.) on Wednesday said she would back the agreement, making her the 34th senator to pledge support. This means that opponents will not be able to collect the two-thirds supermajority vote needed to override Obama's promised veto of any legislative attempt to dismantle the nuclear pact.

"No deal is perfect, especially one negotiated with the Iranian regime," Mikulski said in a statement. "I have concluded that this Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the best option available to block Iran from having a nuclear bomb."

The announcement by Mikulski, who is retiring at the end of next year and does not need to worry about political blowback, gives her still-undeclared colleagues cover to state their positions without worrying about the responsibility - or political fallout - of becoming the senator to clinch the deal.

The president's win is a stinging defeat for the lobbying groups and lawmakers opposing the deal, who spent countless hours and millions of dollars to block its implementation.

Since the agreement was reached in July, they have complained that it doesn't do enough to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and, at best, only delays its pathway to becoming an armed nuclear state.

Israeli reaction

Even those on the fence have openly worried that Iran might funnel some of the money that gets pumped back into its economy after sanctions are lifted into nefarious activities, including funding groups that pose a direct threat to Israel.

"The only reason the ayatollah and his henchmen aren't dancing in the streets of Tehran is they don't believe in dancing," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who is also running for president, said following Mikulski's announcement.

In Israel, the immediate reaction was muted.

One senior Israeli official close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "Whatever is going on in Congress does not change the dangers facing the Middle East from the agreement as it has been currently presented."

The official said that Israel never said it would win its case but that it was important to make one.

A second official indicated Netanyahu would keep attacking the deal.

"The prime minister has a responsibility to point out the flaws of an agreement that endangers Israel, the region, and the world - and he will continue to do so," they said.

Pressing on

The White House declined to take a victory lap before the vote actually occurs. Josh Earnest, Obama's spokesman, said the focus was on winning over as many lawmakers as possible.

"Every vote is important," he told reporters during the president's trip in Alaska.

Along with Israeli officials, other deal opponents, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), are refusing to label the Iran vote a defeat, while promising to continue to press their case.

They are working on the remaining undecided senators to try to ensure that as few lawmakers as possible support the Iran deal - even if Obama's veto of a disapproval resolution is now sure to be upheld.

Ten Democrats, including New Jersey's Cory Booker, remain undeclared, and if just seven more of those senators vote for the deal, Obama's supporters will number 41 - enough to sustain a filibuster against a resolution of disapproval, meaning the president might not need to use his veto pen.