Marco Rubio is refusing to back down from from his fight to force Iran to recognize Israel, a stance that threatens to disrupt a delicately negotiated bipartisan bill that would allow Congress to review any nuclear deal with Tehran.
In an interview on Wednesday afternoon, the Florida senator and GOP presidential candidate said he has no plans to forgo his amendments to the bill, the most controversial of which would require Iran to acknowledge Israel’s statehood and presents a tough vote for both parties.
If that vote takes place on the Senate floor, Democrats in particular would be caught between wanting to appear strong on Israel issues and deferring to President Barack Obama, who may revive his veto threat if the measure is significantly amended.
Rubio is upsetting the carefully choreographed theater that, if allowed to proceed as planned, will give Congress a chance to “weigh in” on the Iran deal but still give Obama pretty much everything he wants. It would seem that they want to be able to say, “Hey, we tried!”
I may be jaded, but any bipartisan bill that immediately gets the approval of this president is suspect. It would also be nice if the Republicans learn that “compromise” doesn’t mean “eventually doing what makes the Democrats stop calling us names”.
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