Providing for Consideration of H. Res. 411, Finding that the President has not Complied with Section 2 of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3461, Approval of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3460, Suspension of Authority to Waive, Suspend, Reduce, Provide Relief From, or Otherwise Limit the Application of Sanctions Pursuant to an Agreement Related to the Nuclear Program of Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, this agreement is deeply, deeply flawed; and when you talk to our friends across the aisle, in moments of honesty, they will admit that it is deeply flawed.

This is the most important national security question of our generation. We have got to get this right, and we simply haven't done that yet.

If I could elaborate on my background that leads me to this conclusion, as the chairman said, I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. For 14 years, I was an Air Force pilot. I flew aircraft that carried nuclear weapons. I worked for the implementation of various nuclear treaties. I understand that for any treaty to work, there has to be a modicum of trust. There has to be a kernel of trust between the two parties.

Let me ask you this: Do you think we can trust the Iranians?

I asked Secretary Kerry on two occasions to give me a single example of where the Iranians have worked with us or our allies in any positive fashion, and he could not do that. But I can give you a long list of where they have worked against us, where they have created death and chaos: Hezbollah, Hamas, assassinations in Central America. Hundreds of Americans have been killed and maimed because of the Iranian-backed Shia militia. This is what they do. And we are supposed to trust them?

And by the way, I believe they are going to cheat, because they are cheating even now. In the last few months, they tried to buy prohibited equipment from Germany. They refuse to answer questions from the IAEA even now.

Which brings me to my second question: Do you think we can trust this President?

I would ask you to give me a single example of what you consider a foreign policy success of this administration--give me a single example--and then let me give you a long list of foreign policy failures, beginning with China claiming much of the South China Sea; with Russia, after the reset, going into Crimea, controlling much of eastern Ukraine now, even now building military posts in Syria.

We went into Libya and created chaos and walked away. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. We are doing the same thing in Yemen, the same thing in Afghanistan. Why should we trust this President?

I believe that most people think this agreement is doomed to fail; and I believe that when it does, we now have to turn towards the question of: What do we do when we have an entirely nuclearized Middle East? When we have four or five countries in the next few years that have nuclear weapons there, how are we going to deal with that, coming from a President who declared it was his goal to see the elimination of all nuclear weapons across the globe? It is a terrible irony that he is going to preside over the greatest and most dramatic expansion of nuclear capabilities in the most chaotic part of the world, that he will preside over that, and that will be his foreign policy legacy.

We need to defeat this agreement while we still can.

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