Iran nuclear deal’s fate in Congress rests with undecided Democrats

Before he served as a U.S. senator, before he ran Delaware’s largest county, Christopher A. Coons was a corporate lawyer, reviewing contracts and business proposals for W.L. Gore & Associates.

 

The eye he once brought to sales agreements for Gore-Tex fabric he is bringing — a decade later — to the United States’ most scrutinized diplomatic accord in a generation: the Iran nuclear deal.

 

“Your training and your role as a lawyer is not to be the wedding-day guy but to be the divorce-day guy,” Coons, a Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this past month. “Your job is to read it through as closely as you can . . . because no one ever pulls that document out unless there’s a problem.”

 

His lawyerly conclusion: “I will tell you, my gut response at several places has been grave concern.”

 

Congress is not scheduled to weigh in on the Iran agreement for at least six more weeks, but its fate lies in the hands of undecided lawmakers such as Coons who have assumed a meticulous, rigorous approach to making a decision.

 

Read More: Iran nuclear deal’s fate in Congress rests with undecided Democrats – The Washington Post