Resistance among Democrats to President Obama's Iran nuclear deal appears as if it's continually eroding.
The latest Democrat to support the deal is Orlando area Congressman Alan Grayson, a progressive who is in a U.S. Senate primary battle with moderate Patrick Murphy, a Palm Beach-area Congressman.
Grayson's office issued a statement Wednesday affirming his stance, and here's an excerpt:
In the absence of an agreement, there is a very substantial risk that the international economic sanctions against Iran would collapse immediately. There is also a very significant risk that Iran would quickly obtain its accrued oil revenue, without any conditions whatsoever. This could not only fund Iran’s unrestrained nuclear program, but also lead to an expansion in its support for international terrorism.
In the absence of an agreement, there is a significant risk that Iran might immediately try to develop nuclear weapons. Some have said that Iran could create a nuclear weapon by the end of this year, in the absence of this agreement. Such an effort, in turn, could trigger another war in the Middle East, with very uncertain results. At this point, were the agreement to be rejected, there is no visible way to avoid this worst-case scenario, in which Iran has the potential to get both the money and the bomb—and quickly.
He said while the agreement is "far from perfect," his concerns about the the possibility of Iran trying to cheat its way out of the agreement are allayed by his confidence in the U.S. intelligence community's ability to snuff out such actions.
Grayson is the latest Florida Democrat to throw his support behind the deal, which Republicans vehemently criticize, unsurprisingly, over concerns that it's not hard enough on Iran and could make U.S. interests vulnerable in the future. They're also concerned that the deal would allow Iran to use its own inspectors (Which the White House has debunked) and that a provision in the deal removing economic sanctions would enrich a country considered a state sponsor of terror.
Grayson joins his opponent Murphy, as well as Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tampa area Congresswoman Kathy Castor.
Murphy is one of four Democrats in Palm Beach County's legislative delegation, and is the only one that supports the deal. His three counterparts oppose it out of concern for Israel.
Democrats have had enough House votes to block the any Congressional attempt to override the deal for over a week now, and recently the Senate also attained enough to do so.
Meanwhile, conservative Republicans trying to stand against the deal defied Republican leadership by delaying debate of a resolution opposing the deal.
At the state level, Governor Rick Scott on Tuesday became one of 15 governors to openly oppose the deal. Florida CFO Jeff Atwater earlier Wednesday asserted the state's right to pull funding from organizations that do business with state sponsors of terror.
"The sinister machinery of the Iranian regime is not news to Floridians," reads his statement. "In fact, Florida was a leader — the first in the nation — to pass a law requiring divestment of public funds from companies that do business with Iran. This bipartisan effort passed both houses of Florida's legislature unanimously. Since the law's passage, our State Board of Administration has divested more than $1.1 billion from companies involved with Iran, and 30 states now have similar measures that keep public money from funding terrorism."
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2015.