A Republican effort to sink the Iran nuclear deal in the US Senate has failed.
Senators fell two votes shy of the 60 needed to advance a resolution disapproving of the international accord.
The result means that legislation aimed at sabotaging the deal is essentially dead and it has handed a foreign policy victory to Barack Obama.
Starting next week, the Obama administration will begin rolling back sanctions to implement the agreement negotiated by Iran, the US and five other nations.
The agreement will check Iran's nuclear ambitions in exchange for billions of dollars worth of sanction reliefs.
We have one goal in mind, shared by many nations around the world: to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. "I believe this agreement comes as close to achieving that as we can hope for at this moment."
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham leveled a harsh warning at Democrats:
"To my Democratic friends: You own this. You own every 'I' and every 'T' and every bullet, and you own everything that is to follow. And it's going to be holy hell."
