Nuclear Agreement with Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I have come to talk about what I think we have reached here--a tipping point in terms of President Obama's legacy.

Recently, Jimmy Carter emphatically charged that President Obama has weakened us and brought us less respect everywhere in the world. When President Carter makes a statement such as that, I don't think President Obama should be spiking the football in the Rose Garden.

Why do you think President Carter made those statements? Maybe he has looked at the legacy over the last 6 years, as many of the American people have. Ukraine is on fire. China is threatening its neighbors. Al Qaeda is stronger than ever. ISIS is massacring Christians and Muslims with genocidal savagery the likes of which we haven't seen since the Second World War. The Jewish people are facing the greatest threat since the Holocaust.

The President got this deal with the ayatollahs, no matter how dangerous and no matter how destabilizing the final accord is. He has claimed a victory, and the media vanguards are right behind him, and he is going to late-night comedy cable shows to build his case.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is no laughing matter. You are going to hear a lot of speeches over the next few weeks--in the 60 days we have to review this deal. There are going to be a lot of technical terms, a lot of things that quite honesty some Members of Congress don't fully understand. But I hope that over the next 60 days we will be able to communicate to the American people in a way that they understand why this is a very dangerous deal.

Here are some questions I hope you will look into and form your own opinion.

One question: Is there truly a dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program? I have looked at the summary of the agreement. I have not read the full text yet. I will be doing that this week. But it is very clear this is not a matter of whether Iran can have a nuclear weapon; it is a matter of when they can have a nuclear weapon. That is not dismantlement; that is scheduling.

There is another one. I think my colleague from Indiana just spoke about it. It has to do with inspections. We use terms like ``snapback'' and everything else, but let's put this in very simple terms. Imagine that the police in your community suspected there was a criminal enterprise in some house. Imagine that instead of being able to get a warrant and then quickly go and knock on the door and identify that criminal activity, the police would send a letter to the criminal saying: In the next 4 or 5 weeks, 3 or 4 weeks, we are going to do a surprise inspection on your house. What is the likelihood that criminal presence or that criminal activity is going to be there? That is the nature of the inspections regime with the nation that still continues to chant ``Death to America.'' They are not a good player. They are not a good actor. Giving them time to prepare for a so-called snap inspection makes no sense to me, but that is what is in this deal, and it is written out in plain English.

Another question is this: Why hasn't the President done something as basic as have the Iranian people--or the Iranian leadership, I should say; this is not about the people, it is about the leadership--show good faith by releasing American prisoners in Iran?

As far as the ballistic missile program, ask the President, ask the people who negotiated this agreement: Will Iran have a ballistic missile program? The answer is yes. They actually have backorders for missiles that could reach Europe. Over time, they will develop a program that will reach the United States. This agreement has no treatment for this.

Ask them if they will dismantle the Iran terror network. The Iran terror network operates throughout the world. The Iran terror network is funded literally through the Government of Iran. Over $300 million has been identified by Canadian intelligence agencies as having been funneled to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and a number of others. Are they going to dismantle it? No. As a matter of fact, I believe that with the sanctions being removed, it is going to provide them more money to fund those networks.

Why would the President release $140 billion in sanctions? Why would we do that? Why would we provide money to a nation that says they need money but they can spend money on terror and a number of other things--not education, not fixing roads, not better health care for Iranians, but spreading terror throughout the world? Why on Earth would we give them more money to do that?

The President has given birth to the Middle East nuclear arms race as well. Ask yourself this question: Do you think it is likely that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and other Gulf States are going to stand idly by when a hostile regime is going to have a nuclear capability over some period of time? Of course not. They are going to do what they need to do to feel like they are protecting their citizens. It will give rise to an arms race. We will be taking about this if this deal goes through I think in my tenure as a Senator over the next 5 years.

President Obama has willfully ignored 40 years of hostility from Tehran. The President may not recognize that we are at war, but the Iranians certainly do. They say in public statements that they are going to continue their fight against America. They are a chief sponsor of global terror. They have never stepped back from their desire to obliterate the United States and our great friend and ally Israel.

This is the Obama doctrine. The President sees America as the problem. He views Israel as an obstacle to peace and Iran as another oppressed constituency with legitimate grievances against the West. In fact, so much so, when millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest the mullahs--the leaders of Iran--the President was silent. The old American alliances are collapsing in confusion and fear, and the only answer from the administration seems to be a clear path toward Iran possessing a nuclear weapon.

In his 1987 State of the Union Address, President Ronald Reagan warned:

Our approach is not to seek agreement for agreement's sake but to settle only for agreements that truly enhance our national security and that of our allies. We will never put our security at risk or that of our allies just to reach an agreement. ..... No agreement is better than a bad agreement.

So there you have it. Our allies--Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt--are worried. Tehran is on the march and moving closer to a nuclear weapon. Charles Krauthammer noted, ``The one great hope for Middle East peace, the strategic anchor for 40 years [the United States] is giving the green light to terror.'' Ladies and gentlemen, I don't think that is a legacy anyone should be proud of.

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