The only thing that hard-liners seem to be good at sabotaging is their own attempted sabotage:

A rebellion by conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives on Wednesday delayed Congress’ first vote on the Iran nuclear agreement and raised the possibility that lawmakers might never vote on a resolution disapproving of the pact.

It would be perfect if neither chamber ended up voting on an anti-deal resolution after all of the Iran hawks’ demands that they be allowed to have their say. Nothing would better demonstrate how irrelevant Congress has made itself in this process than a self-inflicted failure by the House majority to hold a vote. The absurd thing about all of this is that the additional information that the House rebels are seeking will make no difference to how any of them vote. The GOP in both chambers appears to be unanimous in its rejection of the deal, so a little more information isn’t going to help them make their decision, which most of them made long before the deal was even finalized.

Specifically, some House Republicans want a delayed vote because of a spurious complaint about not having access to the arrangements that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made with Iran. Cruz is also calling for the same thing in the Senate. It is standard IAEA practice not to share the arrangements it makes with individual governments, and it would be a bad thing for the cause of nonproliferation if the agency were forced to make exceptions to that practice to satisfy some obstreperous legislators in one country. Then again, the people complaining about this aren’t all that interested in nonproliferation and are just looking for anything they can use to slow down or undermine the comprehensive agreement. It isn’t going to work, and they’re wasting time they don’t have, but it is amusing to watch.

Congress’ review period officially ends on September 17, so there is just one week left to hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval, but as far as the hard-liners are concerned the review period has not even begun. This isn’t true, but they have convinced themselves that it is. This is another good example of how hard-liners on the nuclear deal have undermined their own cause by taking unreasonable and untenable positions. Regardless of what happens in the Senate, the House could still vote on a resolution and pass it with a large majority. That wouldn’t affect the final outcome, but it would give them something to talk about, but some of their members are so hostile to the deal that they are risking their best chance to register their opposition. As Greg Sargent put it earlier today, the GOP is preparing to “snatch defeat from the jaws of defeat.”