Iran Nuclear Deal

Floor Speech

Mr. YODER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the people of the Third District of Kansas and on behalf of American people who are counting on us to put their security before the obvious partisan politics of Washington, D.C. I also join a bipartisan majority, leaders of each party in each Chamber, to stand up and be counted as one of the many voices in this country in opposition to the President's deal with Iran.

Like others who plan to oppose the ratification of this deal, I am not opposed to the idea of diplomacy, but I am opposed to the idea of surrender diplomacy. This administration asked us to trust Iran; but as Iran continues to be the largest world state sponsor of terror, as they continue to shout ``death to America'' and call for our destruction and the obliteration of Israel, our greatest ally, how can we trust Iran?

With secret deals, side deals, and self-verification, this President's capitulation will lead to a nuclear Iran for the first time in history and an American endorsement of their efforts to get there.

Well, the Ayatollah has convinced the President that it only needs nuclear capacity for peaceful purposes. But why does Iran need nuclear capacity at all? Iran has the world's fourth largest proven oil reserves, totalling 157 billion barrels of crude oil, and the world's second largest proven natural gas reserves, totalling 1.193 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

With such a robust energy sector, why should Iran, a nation that has consistently defied the international community on this issue, be granted the ability to proceed with a nuclear energy program? Why should we trust Iran? Have they earned the right to be trusted?

Simply put, Mr. Speaker, this is a gift to the ayatollahs of Iran. For starters, it releases hundreds of billions of dollars in assets to the regime in Iran, giving them a gift basket full of cash to flood terrorist organizations which seek to harm Americans and our allies.

The deal gives the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism a stamp of legitimacy and the means to expand its destabilizing influence through massive amounts of sanctions relief, even before Iran has demonstrated full adherence to the deal's term. It does, however, bring home the four Americans being imprisoned in Iran.

When questioned as to why, this administration claims that it did not demand the release of American prisoners because it wanted to limit negotiations to just Iran's nuclear program.

On the contrary, Iran won key nonnuclear concessions through the process. The deal grants amnesty to Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds force in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, who is one of the world's most leading terrorist masterminds and the man thought responsible for the death of at least 500 United States troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It also lifts the conventional arms embargo on Iran in spite of public testimony from Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey that we should do so ``under no circumstances.''

Lifting this embargo means Iran can begin to stockpile conventional weapons, and Russia and China can begin to legally profit off major weapons exports to Tehran.

Yet perhaps the most troubling aspect of this deal is its inspections regime. Gone are the anytime, anywhere inspections that were required by Congress and outlined by the administration. In its place, a 24-day notice period for Iran, combined with secret side deals that this Congress has no knowledge of and in which the proponents of the plan are happy to be blissfully ignorant.

Mr. Speaker, the proponents of this deal know that it does not make us safer or more secure. They know that we cannot trust Iran. They know that the verification process is weak and is built upon secret deals, they know we shouldn't lift the arms embargo, and they know that the hundreds of billions of dollars being released to the Ayatollah will end up on the battlefield in the hands of terrorists who will use it to kill Americans and our allies. Mr. Speaker, they know this is a bad deal.

I'm proud to have my name listed along with Democrats and Republicans in a bipartisan majority opposing this deal.

Mr. Speaker, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. In 1994, we heard President Clinton sell his nuclear agreement with North Korea on many of the same talking points President Obama used in his speech to sell this deal with Iran. Yet in 2006, we watched as the North Koreans detonated a nuclear weapon.

Mr. Speaker, there is still time to stop this, and I urge--I beg--my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote against this deal so we aren't watching Iranians detonate their own bomb just a few years from now.

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