The United Nations Security Council unanimously endorsed the Iranian nuclear deal on Monday, a key step in lifting international sanctions against Iran.
The endorsement was met with a bipartisan outcry from Capitol Hill, where lawmakers had urged the Obama administration to wait until congress had a chance to review the deal before taking it to the U.N.
Fox News reports:
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on Monday called it an "end-run around Congress."
"I don't know why they're going to the United Nations [first]," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told "Fox News Sunday."
Cardin and Barrasso were joined by several top-ranking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in urging a pause at the U.N.
Congress has 60 days to review the deal -- and then vote for or against it, or take no action. "I think they should have gone to the United Nations after the 60-day review," Cardin said. "They don't gain anything by doing it earlier."
Republican presidential candidates also slammed the U.N. vote. Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) described Monday, the day of the vote, as "a powerfully symbolic day for the Obama-Clinton foreign policy legacy, which will be remembered as a dark time in American history when the mullahs in Iran and the thugs in Havana celebrated at America’s expense."
"History will remember July 20, 2015 as Obama’s Capitulation Monday, the day two sworn enemies of the United States were able to out-maneuver President Obama to secure historic concessions," said Rubio in a statement. "Monday’s events at the UN, Washington and Havana leave no doubt that we have entered the most dangerous phase of the Obama presidency in which the president is flat-out abandoning America’s vital national security interests to cozy up to the world’s most reprehensible regimes."
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said in a statement that the decision to go ahead with the UN vote before taking the deal to congress was an "affront to the American people."
"The Iranian deal may be good enough for the United Nations but it's a terrible deal for the United States," said Graham. "Taking it to the UN before Congress reviews it is an affront to the American people and further evidence of a weak president trying to sell a bad deal. Congress is not bound by today’s UN decision. I look forward to a full and complete debate in the coming weeks."
The U.N. Security Council vote paves the way for the lifting of U.N. sanctions against Iran.