Nuclear Agreement with Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, ahead of tomorrow's hearing in the Foreign
Relations Committee with Secretaries Kerry, Moniz, and Lew on the
President's announced nuclear deal with Iran, I wanted to take a few
minutes to address just how far the administration has moved its own
goalposts in terms of this purported deal.

Over the last few years the administration has made extensive public
statements about what would and would not be acceptable in a final deal
with Iran, and today it is clear that the final deal falls short not
necessarily of other people's expectations but of their own standards
and their own stated expectations.

As Senators consider this proposed deal and whether it should be
approved or disapproved, I think it is important to have a good
understanding of where the President and his team did not meet their
own expectations.

From the early stages of the negotiation, the Obama administration
made clear that a key part of any ``good deal'' would be dismantling
Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

Before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary Kerry said back
in December of 2013 that ``the whole point'' of the sanctions regime
was to ``help Iran dismantle its nuclear program.'' However, President
Obama, in previewing the deal in April of this year, essentially
admitted that it would fall short of this standard by saying that
``Iran is not going to simply dismantle its program because we demand
it to do so.'' But weren't our negotiators actually demanding that Iran
dismantle its nuclear program? That had been our stated policy as the
U.S. Government. Wasn't that--in Secretary Kerry's own words--``the
whole point''?

As Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel pointed out, instead of
dismantling the nuclear infrastructure of Iran, the No. 1 state sponsor
of international terrorism and threat to the safety and stability of
the Middle East, this deal legitimatizes and paves the way for their
nuclear program and its enrichment capability. In fact, by the time
this deal expires, the rogue regime in Tehran will have an industrial-
sized nuclear program.

For the duration of the agreement, Iran will be able to conduct
research and development on several types of advanced centrifuges. In
year 8, Iran can resume testing its most advanced centrifuges, and in
year 9 it can start manufacturing more of them. That is hardly
dismantlement. That is the opposite of dismantlement.

I also want to address another important point that has been made
concerning inspections because, as we know, Iran will cheat. So
inspections take on an especially important role in enforcing any
agreement that is made. In particular, I want to address this issue of
anytime, anywhere inspections.

In April, President Obama announced that a good deal had been struck
between world powers and Iran and noted that the deal would ``prevent
it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.'' This is, of course, now known as
the ``framework deal''--a precursor to what was announced last week.

A few weeks after this announcement, Secretary Ernest Moniz, the
Energy Secretary, who was at the table with Secretary Kerry in
negotiating this deal, said: ``We expect to have anywhere, anytime
access.'' He said that on April 20, 2015. This is a particularly clear
statement from someone intimately familiar with the negotiation
process, and, of course, it was well received because this is, at a
minimum, what needs to be done in order to keep Iran from cheating. But
by the weekend, the administration was singing a different tune.

This is what Secretary Kerry said when he began to backtrack from
what was said by Secretary Moniz on April 20. He said that ``anywhere,
anytime'' inspections was ``a term that honestly I never heard in the
four years that we were negotiating. It was not on the table.'' I don't
know whether Secretary Moniz and Secretary Kerry actually talked to
each other or not. They spent an awful lot of time together in Vienna
and supposedly would be on the same page. But for Secretary Kerry to
say this really incredible statement, that he never heard of this idea,
and that this was not on the table is simply incredible.

So, of course, my question is: Were anywhere, anytime inspections
ever on the table? And if not, why did the administration tell us they
were--including the Secretary of Energy. And if they were not on the
table, why is this deal actually a good deal? Why can we have any sense
of conviction or belief that Iran won't cheat, especially given this
Rube Goldberg sort of contraption involving notice and this
bureaucratic process that will basically lead up to a 24-day delay
between when inspections are requested and before inspections can
actually be done? We know from our experience with Saddam Hussein in
Iraq that it is easy to move things around and avoid the inspectors of
the IAEA.

This deal today provides that inspectors will have ``managed
access''--whatever that means--to suspect sites, but, as I said, it
allows up to 24 days for Iran to stall inspectors before it actually
grants them access, if they ever do. This is another way of saying that
Iran will be able to cheat with near impunity.

The administration has also led us astray on a third item, and that
is Iran's ballistic missile capability. This is the vehicle by which
Iran could launch a nuclear weapon to hit people in the region or even
further.

In February of last year, the chief U.S. negotiator, Wendy Sherman,
testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that while Iran
had ``not shut down all of their production of any ballistic missile,''
the issue was ``indeed, going to be part of something that has to be
addressed as part of the comprehensive agreement.''

Ballistic missiles, as we know, can be used to deliver a nuclear
weapon, and now under the current deal, the arms embargo in Iran will
be completely lifted in just 8 years' time, including on ballistic
missiles. I don't think the administration simply changed their minds
and decided that this wasn't an important issue. I think they simply
caved on yet another important item to our national security and that
of our allies.

Earlier this month, for example, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Martin Dempsey, testified that ``under no circumstances should
[the United States] relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic
missile capabilities and arms trafficking.'' So with this purported
deal, the administration has apparently caved once again on something
that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is the No. 1
military adviser to the President of the United States, said should be
off the table. Under this negotiation, apparently, it is on the table and part
of the deal that we will have an opportunity to vote on in September.

I have one more example. The President has repeatedly said from the
beginning that no deal is better than a bad deal. I agree with that.
Yet right now he and the rest of the administration are telling Members
of Congress and the American people that there is no other option on
the table, and it is either this deal or war.

There is a third choice. There are tougher sanctions that will bring
Iran to the table for a better deal and a good deal. It is simply
unacceptable for the President to be misrepresenting what the options
are to Congress and the American people by saying ``it is either this
deal or war.'' As bad as this deal is, obviously no one wants war.

We do know that Iran is an existential threat to our No. 1 ally in
the Middle East, the nation of Israel. Iran has been engaged in proxy
wars against the United States and its allies since at least the early
1980s--since the early days of the current regime.

Well, the President is supposed to be Commander in Chief of the Armed
Forces and the No. 1 person in the U.S. Government when it comes to
national security. He took office with the promise to restore America's
relationships with our allies around the world, and clearly his promise
has not come true. Instead, what the President has delivered during his
time in office has been that our allies increasingly do not trust us
and our adversaries no longer fear us, as evidenced by the coercion and
intimidation engaged in by Mr. Putin in Eastern Europe.

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Mr. CORNYN. Even President Jimmy Carter in a recent interview
admitted that ``the United States' influence and prestige and respect
in the world is probably lower now than it was 6 or 7 years ago.''

This isn't some Republican criticizing a Democratic President; this
is Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States and a member of
the Democratic Party, who is saying the U.S. influence, prestige, and
respect in the world is probably lower now than it was 6 or 7 years
ago.

This is a difficult statement to take in, and President Carter has
been wrong about an awful lot of national security issues, but I am
afraid he is right on that one.

So now Congress has an important role to play, and I can't think of a
single more important national security issue we will have an
opportunity to act on than Iran's aspirations for a nuclear weapon.
This is a true game-changer in terms of stability and peace in the
Middle East and our own safety and security. I know that I and the rest
of our colleagues will take full advantage of the opportunity of having
60 days to review this agreement, to put it under a microscope, and we
will have no trouble voting it down if we conclude, as many of us are
now starting to do, that it jeopardizes America's security and paves
the way for a nuclear-armed Iran.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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