Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz will back the nuclear deal with Iran, ending speculation the top party official might break with President Obama on his signature foreign-policy priority. 
 
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 For weeks, the Florida Democrat had kept her decision close to the vest, calling it a “gut-wrenching, thought provoking process.” But the congresswoman had spent weeks discussing the issue with constituents, and said she believed supporting Obama’s deal would “most likely to prevent Iran from achieving their nuclear weapons goals.” 
 
 “In weighing all the information that I had in front of me, I concluded that the best thing to do is to vote in support of the Iran deal and make sure that we can put Iran years away from being a threshold nuclear state and ensure that we can more closely focus on their terrorist activity,” Wasserman Schultz said during a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union.” 
 
 Her decision represented a symbolic victory for Obama. He already had secured enough Democratic votes in the Senate last week to ensure Republicans wouldn’t be able to kill his nuclear agreement. And many other House Democrats have begun to voice support for the deal. 
 
 But the Iran issue had put Wasserman Schultz in a tricky spot, torn between the Democratic party and her district, which is home to a significant Jewish population that mostly is opposed to the deal. ||||| Former Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed support for the nuclear agreement with Iran on Sunday, calling the various planks Iranian leaders accepted “remarkable” and dismissing critics’ concerns over its implementation. 
 
 “It’s a pretty good deal,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 
 
 Powell’s comments come days before former Vice President Dick Cheney will speak out strongly against the Iran deal at the American Enterprise Institute. Cheney’s speech on Sept. 8 will warn of “consequences for the security interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East.” 
 
 
 
 Related: Trump: Iran deal horrible, but I can make it good 
 
 Critics concerned that the deal will expedite Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Powell added, are “forgetting the reality that [Iranian leaders] have been on a superhighway, for the last 10 years, to create a nuclear weapon or a nuclear weapons program, with no speed limit.” 
 
 He said the reduction in centrifuges, Iran’s uranium stockpile and their agreement to shut down their plutonium reactor were all “remarkable.” 
 
 “These are remarkable changes, and so we have stopped this highway race that they were going down — and I think that’s very, very important,” Powell said. 
 
 He also pushed back on skeptics who have expressed worries about the ability of independent inspectors to verify that Iran is following the agreement. Powell said that, “with respect to the Iranians — don’t trust, never trust, and always verify.” 
 
 “And I think a very vigorous verification regime has been put into place,” he said. 
 
 “I say, we have a deal, let’s see how they implement the deal. If they don’t implement it, bail out. None of our options are gone,” Powell added. 
 
 On Wednesday, Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski came out in support of the deal, giving President Obama the 34 Democratic votes he’d need in the Senate to override a veto of the deal and all but ensuring its implementation. 
 
 And Powell noted that, even if the deal did fail in Congress, dozens of other nations who were party to the negotiations have already agreed to it, making it impossible for the U.S. to sit out. 
 
 “Even if we were to kill the deal — which is not going to happen — it’s going to take effect anyway, because all of these other countries that were in it with us are going to move forward,” he said. 
 
 “They’re all going to be moving forward — we’re going to be sitting on the sidelines.” 
 
 This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com
– The Iran nuclear deal picked up some high-profile support today, with Colin Powell coming to the defense of what he tells NBC News is "a pretty good deal." "These are remarkable changes, and so we have stopped this highway race that (the Iranians) were going down—and I think that’s very, very important." Critics, he says, are "forgetting the reality that (Iranian leaders) have been on a superhighway, for the last 10 years, to create a nuclear weapon or a nuclear weapons program, with no speed limit." He dismissed concerns about inspectors' ability to verify Iran was sticking to the deal, saying that while "with respect to the Iranians—don’t trust, never trust, and always verify," he thinks "a very vigorous verification regime has been put into place. I say, we have a deal, let’s see how they implement the deal. If they don’t implement it, bail out. None of our options are gone." The Iran deal also got the high sign from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is Jewish and calls the decision the most difficult she's made in her 23 years as a public servant. "In weighing all the information that I had in front of me, I concluded that the best thing to do is to vote in support of the Iran deal and make sure that we can put Iran years away from being a threshold nuclear state and ensure that we can more closely focus on their terrorist activity," she said today, per the Hill. She acknowledges that while she's still got concerns, per Fox News, the US "will be able to more closely concentrate on stopping Iran's terrorist activity."