Top GOP senator: Drama shouldn’t sidetrack Congress on Iran

Members of Congress focused on maintaining their power to weigh in an a potential multilateral deal over Iran’s nuclear program must be careful to not to be thrown off course, a key Republican warned Sunday.

{mosads}”What we cannot do is let drama take us off our course,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” noting lawmakers should want to weigh in on any deal that lifts congressionally mandated sanctions.

Corker is advocating a bipartisan bill allowing Congress to weigh in on any deal the Obama administration reaches with Iran. He predicted Friday it will reach a veto-proof 67 vote majority, and his committee is expected to mark up the measure early next month, assuming a preliminary agreement on Iran can’t be reached by the end of the month.

Corker said the letter to Iran’s leaders earlier this month signed by 47 GOP senators and vowing an Iranian deal with President Obama would end after the president leaves office wasn’t “productive toward the end that I’m seeking.”

“I’ve never seen such resistance by an administration towards a responsible role for Congress, and I think that’s obviously created some of the drama that you’re referring to right now. It’s unprecedented,” Corker said on CBS.

“We’re very close to a political agreement,” Corker said, noting he spoke with Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday. Kerry said Saturday that “genuine progress” had been made toward a deal.

Corker said he feared the U.S. entering into an arrangement that allows Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and frees up $130 billion to use in other parts of the Middle East, where they back militias.

“There is concern about the type of deal that we’re negotiating, but I don’t know of anyone [who] wouldn’t like to see this come to a good end by an arrangement that would keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” Corker said.

“But the question, obviously, is the substance of this and great concern with what the trend is toward Iran’s position,” he added.