In the U.S. Senate competition to prove who is the most hawkish towards Iran, lawmakers just upped the ante.

In what analysts equated with throwing another torpedo at the diplomatic process, Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Thursday pulled an unusual procedural maneuver in attempt to force a vote on a series of “poison pill” amendments to Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-Tenn.) Iran bill currently on the Senate floor.

The amendments would provide further obstacles to sanctions relief for Iranians, including by barring reprieve until Iran has “publicly accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”

The Corker bill, which mandates congressional review of any Iran deal, was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month, following compromises between Republicans and Democrats.

Thanks to Thursday’s political move, if Senators “want to continue and debate other amendments as they intended in the compromise, they would have to vote on the Cotton and Rubio amendments, and that would violate the deal struck between Republicans and Democrats,” explained Jamal Abdi, political director for the National Iranian American Council, in an interview with Common Dreams. “They now have to vote on the bill itself, without further amendments, so they can avoid voting on the Rubio and Cotton amendments.”

Abdi said that he ultimately predicts the Corker and Rubio amendments will not be inserted.

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