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Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. This is a legislative proposal seeking to solve a problem that simply does not exist. So let's make that clear from the outset.

Second, the Biden administration has been incredibly tough on Iran. Frankly, the Biden administration has drawn a lot of criticism from people like me for not reengaging in the JCPOA. Instead, the Biden administration decided to drive a harder bargain with the Iranians.

It is also not true that the Biden administration has not implemented new and additional sanctions on Iran. In fact, just a month ago, the Treasury Department announced the 13th round of new sanctions on Iran, mostly relative to the brutal suppression of the protest movement inside of that country.

And so it is important to get the record straight in terms of what this administration's record has been on Iran. And it is also important for us to not create some fantasy world in which the prior administration's Iran policy was working.

President Trump's Iran policy was an unmitigated disaster. An absolute disaster. Whatever you think about the JCPOA, there is just no question that after we withdrew from the JCPOA, a set of very bad things happened: One, Iran started shooting at American troops inside Iraq and inside Syria, something that was not happening during the Obama administration while we were in the JCPOA. Second, their support for proxy groups continued to increase, including to groups like Hamas. Third, they restarted their nuclear research program. They are now 1 month away from a nuclear weapon. And fourth, the coalition that had been assembled to organize efforts to contain and to isolate Iran fell apart.

And so let's not put a gloss on what was a disastrous Iran policy under the previous regime. But as to the Senator's proposal, even if we have disagreements on the JCPOA or on Iran policy, this proposed legislation is just really bad policy. It is really bad policy, and it will make American sanctions much weaker and much less effective.

Why is that? What this proposal suggests is that for Iran sanctions, every time you lift or waive a sanction, you have to come to Congress. Now, we have sanctions levied against, I would guess, thousands of Iranian institutions, organizations, and individuals. And the purpose of sanctions is to change behavior, right? It is not just punishment. Sanctions are about delivering a consequence to an individual, an organization, or a country for their bad behavior as a means of trying to get them to change that behavior. And once they change that behavior, the sanction is lifted.

That is why Congress, traditionally, does not require a separate congressional review process, a separate congressional vote every time an administration lifts a sanction because you need for an administration to be nimble in applying sanctions and also lifting sanctions because if a foreign individual in Iran or any other place understands that in order for a sanction to be lifted not only does the administration have to lift it but Congress has to have a debate and a vote, it is no incentive to change behavior.

So I just think this is really bad policy. Whether or not you like President Biden's Iran policy--and I do--whether or not you supported the JCPOA, tying the administration's hands on sanction policy in this way just makes the sanctions much less effective. I get it. The Republicans don't like Joe Biden, and they don't like Joe Biden's foreign policy, but this would be bad under a Republican President as well.

I am very glad to work with my colleague on increasing the role that Congress plays on broad foreign policy decisions, but I think that there are some day-to-day administrations of foreign policy, like the decision as to when to waive or lift a particular individual sanction, that would become far too burdensome and contrary to national security interests if Congress got involved to the degree that this legislation suggests.

And so for that reason, simply because I think this is bad policy-- whether this was about Iran policy or Venezuela policy or Russia policy, I just think it makes our sanctions policy much harder to effectuate and ultimately makes our sanction regimes weaker, not stronger.

For those reasons, I would object.

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