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Floor Speech
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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I thank Senator Ricketts for those very clear remarks that demonstrate exactly why this needs to be done.
I myself for a long time have hoped to see our European partners wake up to the extreme threat that we all face from a nuclear Iran. Today, we are 10 years on from President Obama's failed nuclear deal with Iran. Over the last 10 years, Iran has enjoyed unwarranted sanctions relief, and time is short before the opportunity expires to snap back sanctions, as has been described by my colleague from Nebraska.
This resolution would make it clear that the U.S. Senate understands the threats we face from a nuclear Iran and urges our UK, French, and German partners to immediately trigger snapback sanctions pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231. We cannot afford to wait until the end of August. Initiating the snapback process would be right and a long-overdue move and would deny Iran the resources it uses for its terror agenda.
The 2015 deal flooded Iran with cash while allowing it low-level enrichment, a clock to simply wait out, no limitations on ballistic missiles, and nothing to rein in terror proxies. Years down the line, the sanctions relief Iran received from this deal directly funded Iran's terror proxies and led to Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
Iran's ejection of the International Atomic Energy Agency from its facilities marked the latest in a long chain of violations of Iran's nuclear commitments. These actions confirmed what we have known all along: The Iran nuclear program is not civilian, as they claim; it is the pursuit of a bomb to destroy Israel and threaten U.S. national security interests in the region.
The international community must not tolerate this activity any longer. The decision to initiate the snapback process is only the beginning. The U.N. Security Council must fully process and formally reinstate U.N. sanctions without delay. Furthermore, once sanctions are back in place, we must commit to their enforcement. Chinese purchases of Iranian oil and illicit oil smuggling through third countries have long violated existing U.N. sanctions. Once U.N. sanctions return, all member countries will have a duty to crack down on this illegal activity.
President Trump has once again instituted a maximum-pressure policy to bring Iran to the negotiating table. I hope our European friends will also take the next step to counter Iran's threat to regional and global security for good. This resolution will communicate with our European friends that it is the intent of this body to do so.
With that, I yield back to Senator Ricketts.
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