U.S. President Barack Obama locked in enough support in Congress on Wednesday to ensure he can implement a landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

This major diplomatic breakthrough will allow Obama to fully implement the controversial deal over the objections of the Republican-led Congress.

Even if Congress passes a resolution disapproving the deal when it votes later this month, Mr. Obama is expected to veto the resolution. Support from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), who is retiring next year, means there will not be enough votes to override that veto. The president is also expected to secure the votes needed in the House, though he needs to sustain his veto in just one chamber to proceed with the deal.

The moment of Mikulski announcing his support for the deal marked a victory for an administration that has lobbied fiercely to protect the foreign policy capstone of the president’s second term from equally determined opposition.

The situation strikes the mind as similar to that of the 16th U.S. president Abraham Lincoln in the case of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In late 1864 and early 1865, Lincoln went through a lot to have the amendment passed by the House of Representatives.

Lincoln urged Congress in his December 6 State of the Union speech: “there is only a question of time as to when the proposed amendment will go to the States for their action. And as it is to so go, at all events, may we not agree that the sooner the better?""

He instructed Secretary of State William H. Seward, Representative John B. Alley and others to procure votes by any means necessary. Representative James Mitchell Ashley, who reintroduced the measure into the House, also lobbied several Democrats to vote in favor of the measure. Representative Thaddeus Stevens commented later that ""the greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America"".

Lincoln himself would even make direct emotional appeals to particular members of Congress.

The amendment was finally passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865.

It was passed by a vote of 119 to 56, narrowly reaching the required two-thirds majority.

At that time critics worried that the amendment would tear apart the social fabric of America, but now people see it as a remarkable humanitarian deed made possible by a respectable president.

The Iran deal also has many critics who really worry over what it may cause America. Obama has made his best to accomplish what he believes in. It only has to be seen after some time whether he is viewed as a true heir to Lincoln.

SP/PA