Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, while we are standing here right now in Washington, DC, in the middle of an afternoon, protests are happening all over Iran right now.

The latest news reports coming out from social media and the very limited media that can get out of Iran--massive protesters are in the streets of 20 different cities in Iran right now. The latest count is nine people have been killed in those protests by Iranian forces trying to be able to shut down the protests that are now breaking out all over the country--including, by the way, protests in Tehran.

What is going on? This has been a simmering issue for a long time in Iran. As I have stated several times on this floor and in committee hearings, our opposition with Iran is not with the Iranian people. The Iranian people live in oppression underneath the Iranian regime, which pushes their thumb down on them and limits their progress in the world and in their own country.

The spark of this latest group of protests that are happening in the streets all over Iran is a young lady who was murdered in police custody in Iran named Mahsa Amini.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, died in custody because she broke Iran's hijab law. In other words, she wasn't wearing her head covering, and so--brace yourself--the morality police arrested her. The morality police in Iran detained her, where she was apparently beaten to death while she was in prison. Now, the police and the regime have come out and said she had sudden heart failure, but with multiple injuries around her head, that is not sudden heart failure.

The nation--once again--of Iran is rising up to say: This has to stop.

Americans would be surprised at the number of social media posts that are getting out of Iran right now, where large crowds--large crowds--are gathering in cities, tearing down the pictures of the Ayatollah, and chanting in the streets of Tehran, ``Death to the dictator.''

I have friends in Iran who have actually sent me some of the social media posts to be able to show me that this is what the street looks like today. This is breaking out across Iran.

Now, what is interesting is that, at the same time, the President of Iran has been allowed to be able to come into the United States to be at the U.N. General Assembly to be able to speak out for the regime's benefit to the rest of the world. It will be a remarkable side-by-side of what is happening in Iran on the streets right now and the Iranian leadership at the U.N. General Assembly.

At this same moment as well, Iran is working with Russia and has delivered hundreds of unmanned aerial vehicles that are weaponized, little kamikaze drones that are literally taking out Ukrainian artillery right now in the field in Ukraine. The Iranians haven't just supplied these weaponized drones to Russia; they have brought Russian leaders into Iran to be able to train them on how to be able to attack Ukraine with these weapons.

Right now as well, the Russians are calling up additional reservists to be able to fight the Ukrainians and to be able to continue to take the fight to them. Protests are also erupting in Russia right now from Russian moms who are furious that their husbands and their sons are being called up to be able to fight in Ukraine to replace the thousands of casualties that Russia has suffered in Ukraine.

Now, why do I connect the dots in all of these--what is happening in Iran on the streets, what is happening on the streets in Russia, and what is happening right now in Ukraine? Because in the middle of that moment internationally that is happening, the U.S. Government has partnered with Russian diplomats to negotiate with Iran a restart of the nuclear deal with them. I can't make this up. So the United States is using Russia as its proxy to negotiate with Iran to be able to restart a nuclear negotiation with them.

Listen, the JCPOA, this nuclear deal, as it is commonly called, when it was put in place in 2015, was then set aside to say: It is not accomplishing its purposes.

In 2015, when it was put in place--let's just review real quick what happened in the days after that.

Planes full--literal planes full--of pallets loaded with cash were sent to Iran as soon as this deal was signed. It was a government suddenly flush with cash. How did that regime use that cash? They bought munitions to be able to fight against Americans in Iraq.

From 2015 to 2017--that period immediately after the JCPOA was signed and planes full of cash were sent to them--munitions fired against American troops in Iraq increased 341 percent. During that same time period, terrorist incidents increased 183 percent. There were 58 incidents involving Iranian vessels in the gulf that put American troops at risk. Iran used its money not to be able to help the Iranian people but to attack us and to attack our allies.

Our Nation withdrew from this nuclear negotiation 4 years ago. After that happened, Iran's exports of crude oil declined by more than 2 million barrels a day, cutting off a major supply of money into the regime. Iran's defense budget was then cut 28 percent because of those revenue shortfalls. Iran's currency lost 70 percent of its value as the pressure was applied to Iran to actually join into nations around the world, to actually become a nation like the rest of the world.

I am bringing this into the Senate today. It is an issue that I have brought multiple times. We should have ongoing dialogue with Iran. They are ambitious to become a nuclear weapons-capable nation. They are the single largest State sponsor of terrorism in the world. They are the destabilizing force in all of the Middle East. Every nation in that entire region has to prepare themselves for an inevitable, erratic, irrational attack from Iran; and every nation fears the day that they gain a nuclear-capable weapon.

But the gaps in the nuclear negotiations are large. Let me list some of them. The nuclear negotiation excludes any conversation about their terrorist activities. It is just simply not limiting their terrorist activities, just limiting their nuclear capability. They are building long-range weapons capable of carrying a nuclear weapon. Why would you need to build a long-range heavy missile unless you are carrying a nuclear tip? The two are connected--their terrorist activities, their missile ambitions, and their nuclear ambitions. We should connect those in all of our relationships.

My amendment in my sense of the Senate that I bring is very clear today. One is to acknowledge what we all know is actually happening. The second is to say, we can't have any kind of sanctions relief, especially preemptively in negotiations on lifting energy petroleum sales coming out of Iran. The next section of it, the third section of it, is simply not releasing any of the sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. They are the core of the terrorist activities in the area. They are the trainers for those who actually attacked Americans in Iraq. We should not lift sanctions on them. The fourth on this is not providing relief to the financial institutions in Iran so they can't continue to extend their terrorist activities and their financial activities behind the scenes. The goal of this is to be able to put pressure on the regime but to protect the Iranian people as much as possible.

The final statement that is in this sense of the Senate is to affirm our long-term friendship with the people of Iran and our understanding that they are living under the thumb of this regime.

My friend that I had mentioned before who is from Iran has reached out to me in the last 24 hours with this simple question. The Iranian people are on the streets, trying to gain their freedom, trying to be able to speak and live their faith as they choose to. And here is this question: What are the Americans going to do to stand with us? That is a fair question for this body.

The Iranian people who are begging for their own freedom do not want the American response to be sending cash to the regime so they can oppress their people more or lifting the sanctions at this moment so that the regime can continue to advance its terrorist activities or just disengaging from its missile ambitions that destabilizes the region or to continue to be able to use Russia as a proxy for the United States of America while Russia is literally using Iranian drones to attack the Ukrainians.

Let's speak with a clear voice to the Iranian people on the streets. They want to hear the United States say: We stand with your passion for freedom, and not: We stand with the regime in what they are trying to do to you.

So saying all that: As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 1950 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; I ask further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague. We have a lot of agreement in areas in Lebanon and other areas in the region that we work diligently together to be able to resolve--very, very difficult areas in this region.

But I do want to say: Facts are stubborn things. When my colleague makes a statement that we can see what happens during the time of the JCPOA and we can see what happens during the time of sanctions, I am welcome to be able to look at those facts. During the time of the JCPOA, as I mentioned before, from 2015 to 2017, munitions fired against American troops in Iraq increased 341 percent. Many of those munitions were Iranian-provided. So to be able to say that there were no attacks on Americans during the JCPOA is just factually not correct.

I can take you to a multitude of members of the U.S. military that will speak specifically of munitions that were fired on them and all kinds of improvised explosive devices created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and shipped into Iraq to be able to attack them specifically during that time period. So it is not factually correct there were no attacks on Americans during the time of the JCPOA. In fact, all the folks that look at these issues saw that terrorism increased 183 percent during that time period.

During the time of the sanctions, Iran suffered real consequences in their economy, including a dramatic drop in their own defense spending by 28 percent during that time period. I received a personal outreach from an individual who is a leader in Lebanon, who my colleague and I both know well, who reached out to me personally and said whatever the United States is doing right now to cut off funding to Iran, keep doing it because it is also cutting off funding to Hezbollah and to Lebanon. They are not getting their paychecks right now, and that is helping the stability of our government.

So there was a real effect during that time period. We can discuss strategic aspects of which one is more effective, the agreement or the heavier sanctions, but we can't just ignore it and say there was no benefit during that time period in the last several years on the pressure that was put on Iran during this time period.

The fact still remains, the people of Iran are asking the question. They are on the streets chanting for freedom. What is the Senate going to do to stand with them? And, currently, it is nothing. I would like for it to be something, to stand with the people of Iran as they speak out against the repressive regime that they are under the thumb of.

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