Iran and the Joint Plan of Action

Floor Speech

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rice of South Carolina). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with some other colleagues to talk about the important issue of Iran.

As you may know, on November 24, a mere 6 days from now, the Joint Plan of Action expires. And what that means is that the United States and the other P5+1--and that means the permanent members of the Security Council plus another country, six countries--have been negotiating, with the U.S. taking the lead, with Iran to come to some kind of agreement if perhaps Iran would stop its mad quest to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Many of us are concerned, Mr. Speaker, here in Congress that we may not end up with a very good negotiated settlement. Now, the President has said that it is better to have no deal than to have a bad deal, and Secretary of State John Kerry has said the same thing, and that is exactly what we want to see happen.

I am joined tonight by several colleagues who will be talking about this important issue. So I would like to just move right now and yield to a good friend and colleague, a member of the Armed Services Committee, Jackie Walorski of Indiana.

Mrs. WALORSKI. Mr. Speaker, with a comprehensive nuclear agreement deadline less than a week away, the need to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon has never been greater. With its thousands of gas centrifuges, Iran now has the capability to enrich uranium to a grade suitable for use in nuclear reactors or to a higher grade suitable for use in nuclear warheads.

Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and continues with heinous human rights abuses, oppressing freedom of speech, religion, and press, and more. Additionally, Iran continues to oppose our national security interests and those of our key allies while oppressing their own people.

There is no question that a nuclear-armed Iran would dramatically change the balance of power in the Middle East and threaten freedom and peace for the rest of the world. It could also encourage other Middle Eastern nations to develop nuclear weapons on their own, further reducing our influence in that critical region of the world.

For us to be able to trust Iran, along with the rest of the international community, Iran must change their behavior. A real possibility exists that a deadline extension provides them with an opportunity to build a nuclear bomb. In light of this, the only real solution is to force Iran to make serious concessions and robust sanctions.

We must be especially careful about any decisions to lift or ease sanctions. Once lifted, sanctions cannot easily be restored. The risk of a miscalculation or a misstep in the weeks and months ahead is very real and grave, and the threat of nuclear war is catastrophic. If there is to be any hope of reaching a peaceful deal, and if Iran wants prosperity and success for its people, it must cooperate with the IAEA, stop its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, stop its sponsorship of terrorism, and stop its human rights abuses.

Mr. LAMBORN. I would like to ask the gentlelady, you mentioned an important point. You talked about what would happen if Iran did, God forbid, achieve the ability to have a nuclear bomb.

What would other countries in the region do? What are some of the countries you feel would be compelled to have their own version of a nuclear weapon?

Mrs. WALORSKI. I appreciate the question from my friend from Colorado. I think that as we have served together in many of the committees, especially the Armed Services Committee, and we have looked at the map of that area, knowing that if the door is open to Iran, every single other country in the Middle East that does not have a nuclear weapon will aspire to do so. And let's not forget that in the middle of all of this chaos that is being created by Iran, and unlimited ways that cannot be verified of what they are doing because there is no cooperation whatsoever, let's not forget that our one and only ally that is sitting over there in the Middle East, they just had another terrorist episode of rabbis and American citizens killed. Worshipping in a synagogue is their first target. We know from all of the work that we have done in the committee during this Congress that the United States of America is their target as well.

So I thank the gentleman for yielding, and for the question.

Mr. LAMBORN. I appreciate that, and I think we would agree that of the other countries in the region almost without a doubt Saudi Arabia would want its own bomb.

Mrs. WALORSKI. For sure.

Mr. LAMBORN. Egypt would want its own bomb. Turkey would want its own bomb. And others. Others would aspire, but they would have the money and possibly the technology to actually achieve that, or buy it from another country.

Mrs. WALORSKI. True. And let's not forget, given the culture right now in the Middle East and given what we are looking at right now with all of the other instability, with ISIL, with questions from this administration, with a strength-through-peace policy a long grasp away, and let's not forget that we have heard time and time again over just the few years that I have been in Congress, from our friends and our allies who no longer trust us--and we know that our enemies no longer fear us--that if we open that door to a nuclear Iran, we will never get back the threat of a nuclear bomb. I appreciate the question.

Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the gentlelady.

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to invite another Member to speak. Ron DeSantis represents part of the State of Florida, and I am privileged to call him a colleague and a friend. I now yield to Mr. DeSantis.

Mr. DeSANTIS. Mr. Speaker, Iran is a totalitarian Islamic state, a state that has been at war with our country since the Iranian revolution in 1979. They chant ``death to America'' and consider the United States to be the Great Satan. And they have acted on their anti-American beliefs throughout the years.

The revolution was founded, and Iran proceeded to hold more than 50 American Embassy personnel hostage for over 400 days, and they commandeered our embassy, which is itself an act of war. Iran sponsored the massacre of 241 U.S. Marines at the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983 through their proxy Hezbollah. Iran supported the bombing of the Khobar Towers in 1996 which killed 19 United States Air Force personnel and wounded 372 more. During combat operations in Iraq, from particularly 2006 through 2008, Iranian-backed terror groups killed hundreds of U.S. servicemembers, often via deadly EFP attacks.

Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, and they have been so for an awful long time. And yet, and this is very troubling to myself and certainly to many of my colleagues, the President of the United States recently saw fit to write a secret letter to the Ayatollah Khamenei to stress U.S.-Iran ``shared interest'' in battling the Islamic State. The idea that defeating a terrorist group requires enlisting the support of the leading state sponsor of terrorism is a complete nonstarter. It is naive, and it is also dangerous.

Now, in exchange for Iran's support supposedly against fighting ISIS fighters, will the President in exchange make concessions regarding Iran's nuclear program? Will he green-light a right for Iran to enrich uranium for ``peaceful purposes''?

I fear we are heading toward a potentially catastrophic outcome if we pursue this course of action. One, we know that Iran cannot be trusted to have any capabilities that could lead to nuclear weapons. They will not honor their agreements. We cannot even verify all of the facilities that they have, and consistently we have never been able to do that.

So I think Iran will likely only strike a deal in which they can cheat and in which they will develop a nuclear weapon. And, of course, that would be a disaster not only for the region but for the world.

The other possibility alongside that, if you are looking to Iran to help fight terrorism, which is incredible, even if you are successful at defeating ISIS by helping Iran, Iran is going to fill that vacuum. You are going to see a Shia Crescent from the Iran-Afghanistan border to the Mediterranean Sea. Iraq will be an Iranian puppet state. I know they had a lot of influence even before ISIS arrived on the scene, but this will dramatically increase their influence. And, of course, they have reliable proxies in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and they are one of the leading supporters of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

So we need to fight the Islamic State, don't get me wrong, but our policies should seek to weaken the Sunni extremism that is represented by the Islamic State and ISIS fighters, and we also want to weaken Iran and make Iran less powerful throughout the region. I think the Congress here, we can't allow the President to give away the store in a deal that he says he is not even willing to submit to the Congress for approval.

Now we know that Harry Reid will not allow a vote on increased sanctions against Iran. That means one of the first orders of business of the new Congress in January, a Congress in which Reid will be demoted to minority leader, will be to consider and vote on enacting tough new sanctions against the Iranian regime. I think the flaw in this whole process has been as the sanctions started to bite, the administration relaxed the sanctions, gave the Iranian regime a lifeline, and we have been kind of playing this song and dance ever since then.

I think me and many of my colleagues here believe that would have been the time to increase sanctions, make them tougher because ultimately Iran is going to respond to strength and to firmness. So this is no time to stand idly by. We in Congress cannot allow a bad deal to take root that clears the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons. And let's just be clear: we do not share any interests with Iran's terror state. They are an enemy of our country, and they should be treated as such.

I would say to my friend from Colorado that I appreciate you organizing this tonight. I know that we voted long ago to hold Iran accountable here in the House, and it hasn't gone anywhere in the Senate. It almost seems as if it has kind of fallen off the radar screen a little bit here in the Congress. It is important to get this back on the front burner. I think that under no circumstances can we just sit here and allow the President to strike a deal which gives Iran too many concessions, and then have him just go around Congress and Congress not have any say in it at all.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman what would happen over in the Senate if Harry Reid were to allow for a vote on, let's say, the Menendez-Kirk language on tougher sanctions if Iran leaves the negotiating table?

Mr. DeSANTIS. Well, I think that not only would it pass the Senate--and we already know in the House it is a clear veto-proof majority here--I believe we would see a veto-proof majority. And not just the bare 67 for that, I think you would see over 70 Senators vote for that.

And that is why it is important for us to make our voice heard because look, the President is the President. He has certain foreign policy prerogatives, but he is way out of step with the American people and with the Congress on this issue. And I think this has gone on long enough. I think we need to make our voice heard.

Mr. LAMBORN. It is interesting, it was tough sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place. Now the administration had to be drug kicking and screaming to have tougher sanctions that Congress initiated and pushed for. They ultimately relented and enforced those, and I approve of that. But it was not their initiative. It was Congress's initiative.

Today, as you just said, Ron, Congress is pushing once again, and the administration for some reason is digging in its heels, and yet tougher sanctions is what brought Iran to the table. If Iran is serious about having a deal, what is wrong with saying if it falls apart we will reimpose tougher sanctions, but if you do do an acceptable deal, nothing happens along those lines?

Mr. DeSANTIS. Well, part of the problem I see is they have delayed these deadlines. I think on November 20, they may delay it further. To me, that may just be a ruse for Iran to be buying time because ultimately time will be on their side. If they are getting relief from the sanctions, they can then pursue their objectives as they see them. I think it is important that we not allow this to just keep going on. If there is no deal to be had, then let's act and let's hold Iran accountable immediately.

Mr. LAMBORN. Well, I appreciate your comments and thank you for saying that. Also, let me ask you one further question. You talked about Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism and you touched on the fact that they contributed to the death of some of our finest young men and women in this country who died in Iraq. Can you elaborate on that?

Mr. DeSANTIS. Yes, absolutely. I think a lot of people know there were a lot of tough years in Iraq, particularly after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. You had a massive insurgency. That initial insurgency in 2004 in places like Fallujah that reared again in 2005, 2006, and 2007 and was finally defeated by the surge was primarily a Sunni insurgency, and so that is what a lot of Americans think about when they think about what is going on in Iraq. And no doubt, that was huge fighting. We lost very good men and women in that. Eventually we were able to defeat AQI, I might add, in 2007-2008.

In the Baghdad area and some of the parts of southern Iraq where it is overwhelmingly Shia, the groups that would rise up against the United States would be the Shiite militia groups, which are backed and funded by the Iranian regime. In fact, Iran's Quds force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, that is a designated terrorist organization. Quds force was involved in Iraq. They were known for doing--and we know about the IED attacks, roadside bombs, those were very serious. They did EFP attacks, which are explosively formed penetrators, and kind of the scuttle you would hear in Iraq was that no one wants to get hit by an IED, obviously, but a lot of people could survive that. If you got hit by an EFP, it would blow everything to smithereens. So these were deadly attacks, and you are talking about hundreds and hundreds of U.S. servicemembers, and it was Iran who was funding that, orchestrating that.

And even now today in Iraq, you have Quds forces in Baghdad. Some of these Shiite militias that are fighting ISIS are backed by Iran. I remember Prime Minister Netanyahu made this point several months ago, and he knows the region obviously as well as anybody because he has got to. When you see these Iranian-backed terror groups, and then you see Sunni terror groups like those represented by ISIS, you don't want to pick a side there; you want both of them to eventually fail.

So that strategy in order to make that succeed is going to be different than the President writing a letter to the Ayatollah asking to ally against ISIS. We have no interest with Iran. The idea that we are going to align with them, align with them for what? You fight one terrorist group to reward a state sponsor of terror? That just doesn't make sense, and I think it is dangerous when coupled with what is going on with the nuclear negotiations. There is really potential to have some serious policy miscalculations here that will be detrimental to our national security and to our allies' national security.

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you so much for your remarks. You have helped enlighten everybody on how important it is that we not have a bad deal with Iran. The President has said that no deal is better than a bad deal, and yet I am afraid that is what we are tiptoeing to. And in 6 days, if we don't have a deal, I have no doubt that there will be a request for an extension of time. But I haven't seen up to now, and there are only 6 days left, that this joint plan of action has materialized, has produced any kind of solid deal, and that is very troubling.

Representative DeSantis made a good point about Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, in fact, the leading worldwide state sponsor of terrorism. That is very troubling. For that reason Congress in the past and the Security Council have said, Iran, you must stop your state sponsor of terrorism. Both the Security Council of the United Nations and Congress have said that you need to stop your ballistic missile program.

Also the Security Council and Congress have said, ``You need to stop your nuclear enrichment program.'' Those three elements are not something that are snatched out of thin air. They have a history. There is a reason why those three things are so troubling to Congress and to the Security Council of the United Nations.

For that reason, I offered an amendment during the discussion of the National Defense Authorization Act on the floor here in the House this summer saying that those three elements need to be part of a comprehensive agreement with Iran. The House went along with that, totally agreed with that.

I want the Senate to act on the NDAA. I hope that they can adopt that same language because, once again--and I will just repeat--that is language that has already been agreed to by the House, by the Senate, by Congress, as well as by the Security Council of the UN.

I want to see, in 6 days, an agreement with Iran where those three elements are dominant, where we have stopping of their nuclear enrichment, stopping of their ballistic missile program, and stopping their state sponsor of terrorism. Anything short of that is going to be very troubling, Mr. Speaker.

I am concerned that we may have an administration that does not enforce those three vital elements of a deal, but they need to be part of a deal.

Our hearts really go out to the families of those who were killed in that sad and tragic terrorist attack in Jerusalem earlier today. It just shows that the Middle East is a very troubled place. There are those who do not want peace, and they will resort to violence and death and destruction. That is a very sad and tragic thing.

When we look at Iran--and we know that Iran wants to destroy Israel--and yet Israel is only the Little Satan, the United States is the Great Satan--so when we look at containing Iran, it is not just to protect Israel--although that is important and vital as far as it goes--but also Iran is a threat to Europe, to the United States, to the whole Western World.

Iran has a set of values, at least up until today, where they call Israel the Little Satan and the U.S. the Great Satan.

Just recently, the President of Iran came out with a plan how he would go about destroying Israel. This kind of rhetoric is just unacceptable and tragic. I find it very hard, Mr. Speaker, to trust Iran with a negotiated agreement that doesn't have those verified elements, those three vital elements: stopping their nuclear enrichment, stopping their ballistic missile development, and stopping the state sponsorship of terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, if we don't have a good agreement in 6 days, I am just afraid that we need to reimpose the strong sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place. I know that if the majority leader of the Senate who will be in office for the next 6 weeks or so--Harry Reid--if he were to allow a vote of the Senate, there is no doubt they would agree to stronger sanction language.

The Kirk-Menendez language would do just that. The House previously had passed almost identical language establishing the same doctrine, that if Iran leaves the negotiating table and does not have an acceptable deal with the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1, that we will reimpose tough sanctions.

That obviously was having an effect because that brought them to the negotiating table. We need to have tough sanctions waiting in the wings, waiting in reserve, if Iran does not do the right thing.

I don't understand why the administration is fighting and resisting a vote in the Senate and saying that that will somehow offend or humiliate or drive away the Iranians. It is what brought them to the negotiating table in the first place. They understand strength and force.

Mr. Speaker, there are some people in some countries in this world that view weakness as provocative and they move in and take advantage of that. Iran is one of those countries, history has shown.

If we show strength and resolve and decisiveness to them, then they are more likely to respond in the right way. If we show weakness, then they are more likely to take advantage of that. I think we show strength to Iran during this time of negotiation--we have 6 more days before the deadline--by making a statement that, ``Hey, if you don't back off, then we are going to reimpose these tough sanctions, sanctions that have bite to them.'' That is what brought them to the negotiating table, and it has to be part of what we do going forward.

Mr. Speaker, it is just really important that we show strength to Iran, and we only have 6 days left. We don't want a bad deal, no deal is better than a bad deal, but I am very apprehensive. You have heard from others as well. Up until now, the prognosis hasn't been good. We haven't heard of breakthroughs or concessions in the negotiations.

Mr. Speaker, with those things in mind, I think that we just need to urge the administration to show resolve, to show strength, to allow Congress, especially the Senate which hasn't yet taken a position because they have been denied the ability to vote, although we have done it here in the House, to say, ``Iran, you have to come back to the table and have a serious negotiation where you do agree to stop enrichment, stop ballistic missile production, and stop state sponsorship of terrorism, and if you don't do those things, we will have tougher sanctions come back in force.''

We shouldn't deny the Senate that chance for a vote. We should allow them to have that vote. We have taken that position here in the House. It is the right position.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank my colleagues for this time that we have had. We are going to be watching for the next 6 days. I think that it is one of the most vital issues that is hanging out there in world politics today. It affects Israel, but it affects even so much more.

I think the Western World will be totally affected in a negative way if Iran doesn't come clean and have a concession on nuclear enrichment, on state sponsorship of terrorism, and on ballistic missiles.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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