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 By a 56-42 vote, the Republican-majority Senate fell short of the
60 votes needed to advance in the 100-member chamber.
Despite an intense and expensive lobbying effort against it, all but
four of Obama's fellow Democrats backed the nuclear pact between the
United States, five other world powers and Tehran announced in July.
With no more Senate votes this week, the result ensured Congress
will not pass a resolution of disapproval that would have crippled
the deal by eliminating Obama's ability to waive many sanctions.
A resolution would have had to pass both the Senate and House of
Representatives by midnight Thursday, and survive Obama's veto, to
be enacted.
 The House, where Republicans also have a majority, never voted on
the resolution, opting to pass three symbolic Iran-related measures
that would not have affected the nuclear deal.
Two presidential hopefuls, Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio,
missed the vote after a debate in California last night in which
Republicans bashed the Iran deal. Two others, Ted Cruz and Lindsey
Graham, voted with every other Senate Republican to advance the
resolution.
Four Democrats, Senators Ben Cardin, Joe Manchin, Robert Menendez
and Charles Schumer, voted with the Republicans to advance the
disapproval resolution all three times.
Angry Republicans accused Democrats of denying the disapproval
measure its due consideration in order to keep Obama from having to
use his veto power.
"It will go into effect without the American people having their
say," said John Cornyn, the Senate's second-ranked Republican.
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Democrats accused Republicans of staging futile votes to embarrass
the White House, while wasting time that could have been spent
reaching a budget compromise to avoid a government shutdown on Sept.
30.
Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell failed to lure any
more Democrats into backing the disapproval resolution after it
first came up in the Senate a week ago.
After two failed votes, McConnell sought to raise the political
stakes by adding an amendment that would have barred Obama from
easing sanctions unless Iran released American prisoners and
recognized Israel's right to exist.
With Democrats objecting to adding non-nuclear issues to
consideration of the deal, that procedural vote was also blocked,
53-45.
(This story corrects to show the four Democratic senators voted to
advance the disapproval resolution, in the eighth paragraph)
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Eric Walsh and Alan
Crosby)
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