US President Barack Obama’s job approval rating may be steadily rising, but a majority of Americans disapprove of his administration’s grand accomplishment of the nuclear deal with Iran.
Overall, 52 per cent of Americans want the US Congress to reject the Iran deal as opposed to 44 per cent favouring its approval, a new CNN/ORC poll has found. The same poll reported that Obama’s job approval rating now stands at 49 per cent.
The poll findings on the Iran agreement come at a time when Obama and his top officials are going all-out to persuade the Republican-controlled Congress to approve the deal, arguing it is the best possible under the circumstances to hold Tehran on a tight leash on the nuclear front.
The Congress is in the midst of a 60-day review of the deal which, according to Republican leaders, is certain to be rejected by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Obama for his part has made it clear that he will veto any Congressional resolution rejecting the deal. In such an event, the Republicans in the Congress will have a tough job of mobilising a two-thirds majority to override the presidential veto. To reach that threshold, the Republicans will need at least 13 Senate Democrats and 44 House Democrats on their side.
The poll findings came on a day when President Obama and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee locked horns following the latter’s remark, accusing Obama of marching Israelis “to the door of the oven” with his Iran deal.
At a joint news conference with Ethiopia’s prime minister in Addis Ababa, Obama pushed back on the former Arkansas Governor’s remarks, calling them “ridiculous if it weren’t so sad”.
“The American people deserve better. Certainly presidential debates deserve better,” Obama said in clear reference to the upcoming first Republican debate on August 6 that has prompted the various aspirants to outdo one another in their attack of the Obama administration. “In 18 months I’m turning over the keys. I want to make sure I am turning over the keys to somebody who is serious about the serious problems the country faces and the world faces,” Obama commented, urging the contestants to display “a sense of seriousness and decorum and honesty”.
That did not deter Huckabee to hit back again, saying: “For decades, Iranian leaders have pledged to ‘destroy’, ‘annihilate’ and ‘wipe Israel off the map’ with a ‘big Holocaust’. ‘Never again’ will be the policy of my administration and I will stand with our ally Israel to prevent the terrorists in Tehran from achieving their own stated goal of another Holocaust.”
Supporters of the Obama administration have maintained that the Iran deal would slow the country’s ability to gain a nuclear bomb while also putting in place strict controls on their nuclear development programmes, while opponents believe the deal lets Iran off the hook by lifting the economic sanctions.