Iran's History of Terrorism

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSANTIS. I thank my friend from Pennsylvania.

I was listening intently to our colleague from New York talk about the President needing to get up on the top of the mound and throw a perfect strike here with this deal. I have seen the President throw a baseball, and Lord help us if that is what we need to stop this, because I think we are in a major, major pickle here, and it has been the result of bad policies from the beginning.

Almost 2 years ago, in 2013, this House voted to increase sanctions on Iran. And we did that with over 400 votes, on a bipartisan basis. And that was really the obvious thing to do at the time because the leadership of Iran, the mullahs, were chafing under the sanctions regime that was in place. And the way to deal with a country like Iran, with a leadership that is dedicated to militant Islam, is when they are starting to chafe, you turn the screws harder.

We did that thing. We did the right thing. In the Senate, Harry Reid would not bring that up for a vote. The President decided that rather than that route, he would simply provide unilateral sanctions relief to Iran, saying: This is a gesture of good faith. Now we want you to reciprocate with your nuclear program.

Basically, from that time forward, Iran has said: Go fly a kite. We are not giving up anything.

So the agreement we seem to be on the verge of submitting to the Congress allows Iran to keep their entire nuclear infrastructure. The underground bunker at Fordow is fortified for a missile attack. Why do you need to fortify a nuclear facility against a missile attack if it is for peaceful purposes? So they get to keep that.

They have a heavy water reactor in Iraq that they get to keep. That is used to produce plutonium. They don't need it for peaceful purposes. They have advanced centrifuges that they are allowed to keep. Again, no use for those for peaceful purposes.

So Iran is basically in a situation where, if you turn back the clock almost 2 years, when this House voted those sanctions with over 400 votes, if you asked Iran and the Iranian leadership what they most wanted, they probably said: Well, look, we want to keep our nuclear infrastructure, but we want to get rid of these sanctions.

And guess what? That looks to be what is going to happen. And that is going to be a very, very dangerous and bad deal.

I do think it is worth pointing out as much as we can the nature of this regime. They are not only fomenting problems in the Middle East, they are not only dedicated to the destruction of Israel, they are dedicated to the destruction of the United States.

The most deadly attack on U.S. marines since Iwo Jima was in 1983 at the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, when Hezbollah, which was supported by Iran, bombed and killed 220 U.S. marines, another 21 personnel. That is a major amount of American blood on their hands.

In Iraq, in 2006, 2007, and 2008, they were responsible for killing hundreds of our servicemembers through the Shiite militias that were operating as their proxy forces, and may have killed as many as 1,500. So, again, that is major, major American blood on their hands.

This is a regime that has never, since 1979, showed any evidence of changing or deviating from their ideology-rooted and militant Islam. They are a danger not only to the region, but to the world.

We have seen now for some time, since this President has taken office, Iran has steadily increased its influence and power in the region. They are the number one actor in Iraq, by far. They are now battling for Yemen with the Houthis. They are the number one patron of Hamas on the Gaza Strip. They are the number one patron of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and they are the number one patron of Assad in Syria. And so this is a massive Shiite crescent throughout the Middle East.

And guess what? When Sunni Arabs see our administration bending over backwards to cut deals with Iran, they see the Shiite-backed militias that are backed by Iran and Iraq--the ones fighting ISIS--that makes the average Sunni Arab say: You know what? I am much more likely to want to join ISIS than have to live under Shiite oppression.

So the President's policy, I think, has been bad for expanding Iran's influence, but I think it also has the effect of driving more Sunni Arabs into the hands of ISIS, and so it is lose-lose policy.

I thank my friend from Pennsylvania for having this discussion. I hope that this bad deal doesn't happen, but if it does, we need to have robust debate in the House. We need to pick apart the deal piece by piece and show how this is not something that is good for security in the world.

We can see that already before the deal has even been agreed to because you see an arms race in the Middle East with the Sunni Arab states that has been underway now for some time. That is a direct result of the bad policies that this administration has engaged in vis-a-vis Iran.

So the regime in Iran is an enemy of the country. We need to recognize that. And we need to make sure that we scrutinize any deal that comes to this Congress that allows Iran to maintain a nuclear capacity and that it is voted down resoundingly.

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