Every Child Achieves Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday President Obama announced a deal
with Iran, one that will send billions of dollars to a regime with a
long history of violently opposing the United States and its allies.

I come to the floor to express again my deep skepticism about how the
Obama administration has approached these talks and my great concerns
about what has been revealed about the deal so far--recognizing that we
should all, perhaps, reserve our judgment for the process that will
unfold over the next couple of months, by which we will actually be
able to read the text of the deal and then to show to the American
people what it contains and express our concerns publicly and debate
those. That is going to unfold over the next couple of months.

But I think we can all agree that bringing Iran to the negotiating
table and securing an agreement that prohibits 100 percent of their
ability to gain the capacity to create a nuclear weapon would be a
tremendous legacy for any President to accomplish.

Preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power would have been a
legacy item for President Obama or any President. But these
negotiations have been particularly concerning because, in spite of the
fact that the Iranian regime has given us no reason to trust it, the
President has been operating under the assumption that any deal is
better than no deal.

I am afraid the President has demonstrated the old adage that if you
want a deal bad enough, that is exactly what you are going to get--a
bad deal.

In so doing, the President has abandoned longstanding U.S. policy.
Our policy has always been to prevent Iran from getting nuclear
weapons. Instead, the administration has said: Well, it is OK. We will
allow you a plan forward, and--in the words of Prime Minister
Netanyahu--pave the way toward your acquisition of nuclear weapons.

This is an outcome that is irresponsible, unacceptable, and
exceedingly dangerous.

I found it interesting that during his announcement the President
said U.S. engagement in Iran was built upon ``mutual interests and
mutual respect.'' The theocratic Iranian regime is a government that
just last week encouraged its citizens to shout slogans often heard on
the streets of Tehran. ``Death to America,'' they say. ``Death to
Israel.'' I don't see how the President can consider such actions a
sign of ``mutual respect.'' It is just the opposite.

But I should be fair to the President. He is of course not the only
person who supports this deal. We hear that Russia's President Vladimir
Putin has endorsed it. So has Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, who
called the agreement a ``major turning point.'' Our enemies think this
is a great deal, and they strongly support it.

But I hope the administration is aware that the optimism they have
surrounding Iran and this deal is not universal. Our staunchest ally in
the Middle East, the nation of Israel, has stated its clear opposition
yesterday.

President Netanyahu, as he did in a joint session of Congress just a
few short months ago, said in crystal clear language that this
agreement represents a ``historic mistake'' for the world. That is
likely because the Iranian regime has regularly--even throughout the
ongoing negotiations--called for the destruction of Israel.

So while our enemies such as Bashar al-Assad of Syria called the deal
a major turning point, our greatest ally called it a ``historic
mistake.'' That should give all of us pause. What other warning signs
do we need? Can a deal that is wholeheartedly endorsed by our
adversaries and simultaneously disdained by one of our closest allies
possibly be in the best interest of the United States of America? I am
interested in hearing the answer to that question during the course of
our review and debates because that is the question we will have the
chance to answer for ourselves at the end of this next 60-day period of
time.

Although I have seen several headlines talking about Republican
opposition to the agreement, I would like to point out that there are a
number of Democratic colleagues who have been quick to voice their
concerns as well. This should not, and I pray will not, become a
partisan disagreement. What we ought to be doing, in the best interest
of the United States of America and our national security and those of
our allies, is getting to the bottom of this agreement, raising
concerns, and asking questions. Perhaps the President would like for
this to become a partisan debate because then he wins, and in so doing
America and our allies lose.

Yesterday, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee said that ``there is no trust when it comes to Iran.'' That
statement was made by the distinguished Senator from Maryland, Mr.
Cardin. Similarly, another Democratic colleague, the senior Senator
from New Jersey and former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,
said that ``the deal doesn't end Iran's nuclear program,'' but instead
it ``preserves it.''

This deal cements many of the longstanding concerns that I and many
of my colleagues have had. Instead of ridding the world of an Iranian
nuclear weapon once and for all, this simply kicks the deal down the
road--when, by the way, President Obama will no longer be in office--
but it completely preserves the nuclear infrastructure required to
create a nuclear weapon in as little as 1 year. We can't afford to sit
back, cross our fingers, and wait for the regime to resurrect its
nuclear program after their main obligations under the deal have
expired.

Let me just be clear. The American people are not so desperate to cut
this deal with the Iranian regime, and I think they will be even less
supportive than they have been so far once the details of this deal
gets vetted.

I wholeheartedly reject the suggestion the President has made on
numerous occasions that there are two alternatives: There is this deal
or there is war. That is ridiculous. That is a false choice. What it
should be is a choice between this deal and something better--something
that actually denies Iran nuclear weapons and doesn't unleash billions
of dollars for them to fight their proxy war against the United States
and our allies.

Again, the No. 1 state sponsor of international terrorism is Iran,
and we are going to unleash the sanctions on the oil that they will now
be able to sell in global markets and reap windfall profits perhaps,
along with released funds that have been sequestered in American banks
and other institutions, so they can now prop up their economy and again
pay for the war they are fighting against Israel and the United States
and other allies.

The bipartisan sanctions regime that Congress has put in place over
decades should not and cannot be undone through an Executive agreement
between President Obama and the head of the world's leader in state-
sponsored terrorism. As elected representatives of the American people,
we, all of us, in addition to the President, are committed to securing
a good deal for the people who sent us here, and that means making sure
Iran will never have the ability to build a nuclear weapon, protecting our interests and
our allies against a threatening
regional power and, first and foremost, ensuring that the American
people are safer tomorrow than they were yesterday.

Now that the White House has submitted the first 109 pages of this
deal to Congress, we are in the process of reviewing it, but there is
more to come--classified annexes and all. I look forward to reading
this agreement word-for-word, understanding it better, and asking many
of the similar-type questions which I posed here today, which need good
and solid and reliability answers. We can't base this on a policy of
hope or even trust in the rogue regime in Tehran. We need answers to
these questions and, even more importantly, so do the American people.

I yield the floor.

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