Nuclear Agreement with Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on the floor we are going to return in a few minutes to the debate on the Iran agreement. This agreement, of course, has been in the works for a long time. President Obama set out to create a set of sanctions, punishment against Iran to force them to come to the table and to negotiate with us and other nations so they would not develop a nuclear weapon. The President invested a lot of capital in it, and it worked. Congress imposed sanctions. The President imposed sanctions.

The day came when the negotiations started, and we weren't sitting alone at the table. It is an amazing alliance of nations trying to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. It included China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the European Union. They all joined us in the sanctions, and many others too. But they joined us at the negotiating table, and they worked with us until we reached an agreement. That agreement didn't rely on trusting the Iranians. No. It relied on inspectors, real inspectors from the United Nations who have a sterling reputation. It was those inspectors who warned us before we invaded Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction. The Bush-Cheney administration paid no attention. We paid a heavy price for that dereliction of duty.

Now these inspectors are in place--will be when this agreement moves forward. We can not only find out what is going on in Iran when it comes to nuclear weapons, we can make sure we discourage them from ever violating this treaty or agreement. Should they violate it, automatically the sanctions will snap back. In fact, it takes only the vote of the United States in the Security Council of the United Nations for all of the sanctions to come back on Iran if they break the treaty. Inspectors, snapback on sanctions, and I hope it results in what we want to see: No. 1, stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and No. 2, avoid the United States from going to war again in the Middle East. Those are our two goals.

Those who oppose this agreement come to the floor and say: Stop it. Don't do it. Walk away from it. It is nothing but bad.

Every single Republican in the House and Senate--every single one of them--has come out against this agreement. Not one is supporting it. It shouldn't surprise us.

On March 9, 2015, 47 Republican Senators sent a letter to the Ayatollah Khamenei. Do you know what they said? Don't negotiate with the United States of America. Don't negotiate with this President or other nations. Whatever you do is going to be subject to congressional review. There is no guarantee we will support it. Even if it is supported by Congress, there is no guarantee that any future President would enforce this agreement.

You may even hear it tonight in the Republican Presidential candidate debate. Isn't it interesting that this was the first time in the history of the United States, the very first time that a group of Senators intervened in a Presidential negotiation in national security--the first time that has ever happened. And 47 Republican Senators, including every Member of the leadership, signed that letter. What would happen if 47 Democrats had sent a letter to Saddam Hussein prior to the invasion of Iraq saying: Don't pay any attention to President Bush. What do you think the reaction of Vice President Cheney would have been? He would have had us all up on charges--treason. That is exactly what happened here. There was a letter from 47 Republican Senators saying: Don't negotiate with the United States. The President ignored it. The negotiations continued.

The agreement is before us. There was a key vote last week, a critical vote. Every single Member of the Senate has publicly declared where they stand on this agreement. After some 8 weeks of deliberation and debate, the vote took place last week, but it wasn't enough for Senator McConnell. He demanded that we replay the vote last night. We did, with the same result.

I don't know how many times he is going to bring this before us, but may I suggest to the Republican leader there are some items that he might consider moving to. We are 8 legislative days away from shutting down the Government of the United States. Should we be discussing that? Most Americans would say so. Most Americans think it is embarrassing that the U.S. Government would shut down because a willful group--a small minority--is determined to get that done. Too many people suffer when that happens. We have to do everything we can to keep this government open.

Let's get beyond this debate. We have already established what the vote is, and the Republicans didn't come up with the 60 votes necessary to move forward. That is the story. They don't like the ending, but that is the ending. Let's move forward in a responsible way to do two things--first, to make sure that Iran lives up to this agreement and do everything in our power to enforce it, and second, get on with the business of government. Let's fund this government. Let's not become a nation that people look at and say: Who is in charge here if a Republican Congress would shut down a government for a second time, as they did a couple of years ago? Who is in charge? Let's get into that issue and let's do it in a responsible and a bipartisan way.

I yield the floor.

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