Iran Deal

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, for 35 years, the United States' relationship with Iran has been frozen in amber, locked in a series of proxy wars and covert struggles.

Circumstances have occasionally thrust us together, like our shared actions against the Taliban after 9/11 or, more recently, working together against some of the most barbarous forces in the Middle East.

Now, no one is under any illusions that the military leadership and hard-line clerics are bad actors opposed to the United States, but that is only part of the story of a complex narrative.

The new and potentially more significant chapter of that relationship is an effort to contain Iran's nuclear ambition, not through force, but a combination of tough, multinational sanctions and diplomacy. This all started in the Bush administration a decade ago and has continued. Congress is now beginning the analysis of this historic agreement.

For the first time, Iran's nuclear activities have been reined in. They have followed what they said they would do for the last 2 years. For the first time in history, we have an agreement that would last for a decade or more, reached not just by the United States alone--we could not have done this alone--but with all five members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany, and the cooperation of potential consumers of Iranian oil like India and Japan.

Now, we must be prepared to hear people, starting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, attack it. We will hear that it is not good enough, that it contains potential downsides.

Iran might well try to cheat. Netanyahu will make his arguments with the same certitude as when he appeared in Washington before the Iraq war and talked about the benefits of attacking Iraq. He would have more credibility with me if he weren't so wrong then and if he had any credible alternative now. He has complaints but no solution.

Indeed, he doesn't even have a peace plan for dealing with Israel's own ongoing festering problems with the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories--a man with no plan and no alternative attacking the best option for America and Israel that we have seen.

With this agreement in place, we will have more tools than we have ever had to inspect, to monitor, and enforce and more allies to make it work. If the United States walks away from this agreement, it is certain that the countries that helped us reach this point will walk away, too, starting with Russia and China.

Without this perfect alignment of interests for punishing sanctions, they will fall apart, and we will lose this moment.

Now, despite the huffing and puffing, military action is not viable. Talk to your constituents about what their appetite is for another military engagement in the Middle East, particularly, with the horrific costs and consequences that would follow.

Military action would only strengthen the most reactionary evil forces in Iran to unleash the next escalation of global terror, which is frightening to comprehend. An attack will strengthen Iran's resolve to secure their own nuclear weapons, just as North Korea has done. And you cannot bomb away the knowledge that Iran has on nuclear technology.

Ten, fifteen years is a lifetime in international affairs. Who could have imagined what has taken place in the last 15 years of our history? The world was a much different place in the year 2000.

We ought to work to keep this coalition in support of the agreement alive and well and work to implement it and to enforce it, because we can snap back these sanctions if Iran crosses the line. The evidence is that the American public, and especially the majority of Jewish Americans, want to give diplomacy a chance.

Congress should allow it. Reject the alternative for people who have no alternative. Recognize this as a major achievement, and work together to make diplomacy work. Let's seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source