Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak for a few moments. I thank both the Senators from Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arizona for allowing me this opportunity to join them in this effort. For those who are watching at home,…
Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak for a few moments. I thank both the Senators from Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arizona for allowing me this opportunity to join them in this effort.
For those who are watching at home, I know so many other issues are going on around the world--we see the things going on with regard to Israel over the last few days; certainly the shootdown of that airplane by Ukrainian separatists, being armed by the Russians, is of great concern.
But what should not be lost in all of this is there is another urgent matter before the Nation and the world; that is, the ambitions of a rogue, radical regime in Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon that they will use to hold the world hostage and establish dominance in the region and in their stated goal, to destroy Israel and wipe it off the face of the Earth.
What has happened here over the last few months, for those who have been following this, is the White House has engaged in negotiations, along with some other countries, with Iran to get them to walk away from this. These negotiations have been ongoing. I have never been very optimistic about it, although we all hope to wake up one day to the news that the Ayatollah and the Supreme Leader in Iran and those who surround him have somehow decided to
walk away from this ambition and change their direction.
These negotiations are not going very well. That is why they have now been extended for another 4 months. The administration claims there has been great progress being made, although it is not clear what that progress is toward. For example, Iran's right to enrich, which they do not have one, but this right to enrich uranium has essentially been recognized as part of these negotiations, meaning there will be no guarantee that Iran cannot at some time in the future come back and exploit this agreement to develop nuclear weapons. If they keep the machines, and if they keep the process in place to enrich uranium, if they decide at some point in the future to go from a symbolic nuclear program, or a nascent one, into a full-fledged weapons one, they can do that rather quickly.
That is what they have agreed to do, already allowed them to retain a right to enrich. That, in and of itself, should be reason, in my opinion--perhaps it is not shared by others but in my opinion--to pull the plug on these negotiations. But it is not even clear in this instance that the administration is still insisting that Iran dismantle all of its nuclear-related facilities. In fact, according to some press reports, the Iranians want to keep all of their current centrifuges and the United States is supposedly open to allowing Iran to retain thousands of them. Iran's Supreme Leader even said recently that they need a larger enrichment capability than the one they currently have.
Another thing that has happened as part of this extension is that the P5+1 countries are going to allow Iran to access another $2.8 billion in sanctions relief. Basically what they have done here is they have forced the hand of this extension, and they get even more relief as a result of it.
I am also worried that the administration seems willing to allow Iran to have even more than 4 months to provide simply answers about its past work on nuclear weapons.
If they are not even willing to come clean on what they have done in the past, how can we possibly treat them as a reliable, responsible actor. Beyond that, there seems to be no attention whatsoever paid to the need to address Iran's ballistic missile program, its ICBMs. There is only one reason why you have ICBMs and that is these are long-range rockets capable of one day reaching the United States as they continue to develop them. The only reason they would even have one of those is to put a nuclear warhead on it. Just imagine a world where Iran has nuclear weapons capable of reaching this very city or New York or any part of the continental United States.
It would be all-out chaos. They would now have to be treated very differently, and they would basically be able to act with impunity anywhere in the world. And that reaches my last point. Absent in this whole conversation and in all these negotiations is any discussion about Iran's ongoing sponsorship of terrorism and their ongoing human rights violations, including a pastor--an American, with strong links to this country--being held unjustly in that country.
All of this is to say this is the reason why this bill is so important. Any final agreement on a matter of this consequence should be reviewed by this body, should come before Congress, and Congress should have the ability to provide oversight. The absence of that, I believe, unfortunately, leaves us vulnerable, not only to a terrible deal but to a dangerous one that could potentially endanger the future of our allies and even of our own country.
I am grateful to join these Senators. I don't know who would want to speak next. I know all of my colleagues--I know the Senator from Arizona has spent a tremendous amount of time sounding the alarm on the danger--not just of this deal--that Iran poses in this region.
I would be interested in hearing from the Senator from Arizona on his views about this extension.
I think the Senator from Arizona touches on the exact point.
First, we have to understand Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. No nation on Earth uses terrorism as an active form of tradecraft as they do. They use terrorism the way we use military forces when necessary. They view it as a very active part of their agenda.
The Senator is correct. Virtually every major terrorist organization in the Middle East, absent a couple, they provide extraordinary assistance to. I think the Senator touched on another point: What is their goal? That is important to understand.
What is the Iranians' goal in these negotiations? In my mind those goals are quite clear. In fact, it is shocking to me because I know the administration knows this as well.
The goal of Iran is pretty simple. They want relief from as many sanctions as possible without agreeing to any irreversible concessions on their nuclear program.
Let's go through what they want to achieve. They want to be able to achieve or obtain an internationally recognized right to enrich--check.
They want the capability to enrich, process in the future, and keep that much in place as possible. They have already gotten that--check.
They want to continue to develop their long-range rockets and missile capabilities so that one day they can be in that position where, when we negotiate with them in the future on anything else, they are untouchable because they can launch a nuclear attack against the United States and certainly against our allies. They continue to do that-- check.
The Iranians in this whole negotiation view themselves to be in a position of strength. To be quite frank, they believe that our President wants this deal more than they do. They believe he wants this deal more than they do, and that is what puts them in this tremendous position of strength.
The result is that these negotiations are not going to, in my view--I hope that I am wrong. I hope that tomorrow when we open the paper and read: You know what. They have changed their mind. They don't want to do any more terrorism--no more rockets and no nuclear weapons program-- and they have become just a normal government in a normal country. Don't hold your hopes out for that because that is not what they have shown in the past. That is not what they are doing now, and they are negotiating from a position of strength because they know the President wants a deal much more than they want or need a deal.