Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Madam President, this week we will debate the budget. The
key part is the military budget, one part of our government where the
strategy and threats must drive the budget, not vice versa. The
greatest threat to our national security is a nuclear-armed Iran, and
this man, Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran.

Last week marked Nowruz, the beginning of the Persian New Year. On
the occasion we were treated to speeches by President Obama and Iran's
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. I have to say, President Obama's
speech was ill-advised. He spoke to the Iranian people directly, asking
them to press their leaders and speak up in support of a nuclear
agreement.

Let's be clear about one thing: Iranians who speak up tend to
disappear into secret prisons or wind up hanging from cranes by the
neck. Worse, by acting as if public opinion matters to the Ayatollahs,
President Obama is treating Iran as if it were a legitimate democracy,
not a brutal theocratic dictatorship. No President should legitimize
such a regime, which emboldens the dictator and undermines the Iranian
people struggling under his yoke.

But today I want to focus on the speech of this man, Ayatollah
Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran. The Ayatollah gave his speech on
Saturday, just 2 days ago. It may have escaped your attention, but it
was not exactly a New Year's message filled with blessings of hope and
peace.

Ayatollah Khomeini has never been a great admirer of America, of
course. He sometimes likes to refer to us as the ``Great Satan.''
During his Nowruz speech, he whipped the crowd into frenzied chants of
``death to America.'' What was his response to that chant? He said,
``Yes, certainly, death to America.'' Death to America. That was just 2
days ago.

Remember, this is the leader with whom the United States is
negotiating today, a theocratic tyrant who, in the middle of nuclear
negotiations, chants ``death to America.'' I suggest that we rethink
the wisdom of granting nuclear concessions to such a man.

Unfortunately, Ayatollah Khomeini may know his negotiating partners
somewhat better than they know themselves, for the Ayatollah also
observed, ``Iran's enemies, particularly America, are moving forward
with prudence and diplomacy. I understand them. They know what they are
doing. They need these negotiations. America needs the nuclear
negotiations.''

Regrettably, he is right when he says he understands his enemies,
since the West, especially the President, acts as if we need these
negotiations more than Iran does. After all, we had Iran on its knees
in 2013 when President Obama gave Iran billions of dollars in sanctions
relief for merely starting negotiations. The West has extended
negotiations twice in exchange for nothing. The President has also made
a series of one-sided concessions from Iran's uranium enrichment
capabilities to the length of a nuclear agreement. So, yes,
unfortunately, Ayatollah Khomeini is correct when he says he
understands his enemies.

Let's consider what he said about the negotiations in this light.
This past weekend, the Ayatollah emphasized, ``We are absolutely not
negotiating or holding discussions with the Americans over regional or
domestic issues and neither over weapons capabilities.'' Again, he is
absolutely right. Iran has a ballistic missile program, which it only
needs if it wants to strike the United States or our European allies,
because it already has missiles capable of striking Israel or anywhere
else in the Middle East. Yet we have removed its missile program from
the negotiating table, just as we have removed the possible military
dimensions of its nuclear program from the table, even though that is
critical to understanding how far they have progressed toward a bomb.

It is not just their weapons capabilities. Note that the Ayatollah
also said Iran is not negotiating over regional issues. He made this
point repeatedly, saying also, ``We are not negotiating with the
Americans over regional issues. U.S. goals in the region are in
complete contrast with our goals,'' and, ``Negotiations with the U.S.
are only over the nuclear issue, and nothing else. Everyone should be
aware of this.''

By ``regional issues'' and ``our goals,'' to be clear, Ayatollah
Khomeini means Iran's drive for regional hegemony. The outlaw Assad
regime in Syria is more beholden to Iran than ever. Iranian-aligned
militants have seized the capital of Yemen, causing the American
Embassy to close and our troops to evacuate. Iranian-backed and
Iranian-led Shiite militias are slowly taking over Iraq, and Lebanon
remains subject to Hezbollah, Iran's terrorist proxy.

Despite this multifront aggression, President Obama is
compartmentalizing the nuclear negotiations as if Iran's drive for
hegemony and its pursuit of nuclear weapons are distinguishable and
unrelated rather than springing from the regime's revolutionary nature.
In fact, President Obama reportedly wrote a private letter to Ayatollah
Khomeini--his fourth private letter to the Ayatollah--in part
reassuring him that the United States would not undermine Assad's
regime in Syria. Is it any wonder then that the Ayatollah boasts the
negotiations are so limited? Is it any wonder what Ayatollah Khomeini
said this weekend about sanctions relief? President Obama and Secretary Kerry keep
insisting that sanctions can only be lifted gradually as Iran
demonstrates compliance with any deal. The Ayatollah is having none of
that. He said this past weekend: ``The lifting of the sanctions is part
of the issues being negotiated and not the outcome of the
negotiations.'' In other words, in exchange for the Ayatollah's
ephemeral and easily reversed promises, ``sanctions must be lifted
immediately following an agreement.'' That is not a splittable
difference. And let's just say our side's history of one-sided
concessions in these negotiations does not inspire confidence that we
will preserve a sanctions regime that we took decades to assemble
fully.

Finally, Ayatollah Khomeini wants the world to know that Iran will
not be bound in perpetuity by any deal, no matter its terms. He said:
``The Americans keep saying that there should be irreversibility in the
terms Iran accepts and the decisions it makes. We do not accept that.''
The Ayatollah is happy to pocket concessions now for billions of
dollars in sanctions relief and international legitimacy while
preserving the option of going nuclear in the future, much as North
Korea did after the 1994 Agreed Framework. I understand why Ayatollah
Khomeini would want that deal, but why would we?

This is the man with whom we are negotiating. Evil men rarely cloak
their wicked intent, and I urge my fellow Senators and all Americans to
pay careful attention to Ayatollah Khomeini's words both this past
weekend and more generally. When someone chants, ``Yes, certainly,
death to America,'' we should take him at his word and we should not
put him on a path to a nuclear bomb. Those words are appalling enough.
Let's not give him the ability to act on them.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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