Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. KING. Mr. President, I rise today to speak to the bill that is
before us with regard to the Iran negotiations. I wish to address two
fundamental and major segments of this process. One is the process and
the other is the substance of the agreement which, hopefully, will come
before this body at the end of June or July.

First is the process. We are operating in a constitutional gray area.
There is no question that the Constitution assigns principal
responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy to the President, but
it also assigns responsibility to the Congress--responsibility with
regard to treaties, responsibility with regard to funding the foreign
policy of the United States, and responsibility with regard to
approving foreign policy officials. So there is an opportunity here for
us to break, in a sense, new ground to establish a rational, formal,
predictable process for considering this important issue.

If we don't pass a bill, such as the one that is before us today, we
will be in a kind of disorganized, chaotic situation of what will be
the congressional reaction, what is Congress's role, how will it be
played out, and how will it work. I believe that it is very important
for us to establish this process before the agreement is laid before
the world and the American people. It sets forth a process whereby
Congress with can weigh in in a meaningful way and determine the merits
and the quality of the arrangement that is being set before us.

I cannot imagine a more solemn responsibility for this body than the
consideration of this matter. This is a decision which will affect the
United States, our ally Israel, and all the countries of the Middle
East for generations to come. This is a consideration that must be
taken on the merits, on the facts, on the data, on the actual
alternatives--and I will talk about that in a minute--that we have to
the deal, or the arrangement, that we hope will ultimately be brought
to us later this summer. Let's treat this issue on its merits, and,
please, to my colleagues, let's not treat it as simply another partisan
issue.

We have a tendency around here for everything to become a partisan
issue. A great Republican Senator of the 1950s said that ``politics
should stop at the water's edge.'' That means that this kind of issue,
which involves war and peace and ridding or preventing a major country
from obtaining nuclear weapons and thereby destabilizing the region and
possibly the world, is the most solemn kind of issue that we can face.

I know that there are people in this body who are not supportive of
the President. They oppose the President. They don't like what he did
on health care or don't like what he did on immigration. This is not
the place for partisan politics. That does not mean I am saying we
should roll over and do whatever the President says. I don't mean that
at all. What I mean is that this matter should be considered in the
context of the facts and the merits. What will it actually do and what
are the alternatives?

It is not about whether we agree with this President or whether we
want this President to have an international accomplishment on his
resume. We have to try to separate ourselves from that kind of
consideration.

Let's talk a bit about the agreement itself. The first thing to say
about it is that it doesn't exist yet. It has not been finalized. We
don't know what it is. I am a little surprised, frankly, when I hear
many of my colleagues say that it is a terrible deal and won't work,
when we don't even know what it is.

It is true that we have a framework. Interestingly enough, many of
the same people who are saying this is a terrible deal are the same
people who said that the joint plan of action 1\1/2\ years ago was
terrible--a historic mistake. It turned out to be a very important step
toward an agreement and essentially froze Iran's nuclear program for
the past 18 months.

Let's take a deep breath and reserve judgment about whether this is a
good deal, a bad deal or something in between until we actually see
what it is and see what is signed. Hopefully, there will be something
signed. We don't even know that for sure.

Clearly, the framework agreement that was announced a few weeks ago
is an important step in this process. It gives us some information, but
it does not give us the all-important detail.

First, let's do ``ready, aim, fire,'' not ``ready, fire, aim.'' Let's
understand what it is we are debating and talking about before we fill
the airwaves with rhetoric about whether this is a good or bad deal.

Second, it has to be a good deal or we should not approve it. If the
deal is illusory and structured in such a way that Iran has a clear
path to the bomb and it would not slow them down, and, in fact, would
facilitate it in some way, clearly we should not approve it and it
should not be before us.

I start with the premise that, A, we should hold our fire until we
see what it actually says, and, B, it has to say the right things. It
has to affirmatively stall, delay, and prohibit Iran's path to a
nuclear weapon, and it must be totally verifiable. Ronald Reagan, of
course, said ``Trust, but verify.'' In this case, it is don't trust and
verify to the nth degree.

I will submit that verification is the heart of the agreement, and it
has to involve technology and people on the ground. It has to involve
an openness to inspections that is unprecedented. We have experience
from dealing with North Korea. We had a ``kind of'' agreement with
North Korea which turned out not to be sufficient, and, in fact, they
moved toward nuclear weapons by cheating.

We cannot make that mistake again, and verification is the heart of
it. It has to be as vigorous and as intrusive as is necessary in order
to assure us and the world that Iran is not cheating and is not moving
in any way, shape, or form toward a nuclear weapon.

In this regard, I think we are extraordinarily fortunate in this
moment of history when this particular negotiation is taking place, in
that one of the President's principal advisers, the Secretary of
Energy, happens to be a nuclear physicist. I don't know if we have ever
had a nuclear physicist in that position before, but he is uniquely
positioned to understand the details and the implications and the
alternatives that can help us to assure that this arrangement provides
the protection that we believe must be the case.

In assessing this arrangement--whatever it is--I start with the
premise that it has to be solid, verifiable, and meaningful. It cannot
be just window dressing. It has to stop Iran's progress toward a bomb
and create at least a 1-year breakout period so that the other
alternatives can be exercised if they start moving in that direction.
In order to assess that deal, it is imperative that we also assess
alternatives. We cannot just say: Well, this is good or bad. It has to
be, compared to what? There are really only two alternatives that I can
see. If we don't make this arrangement, one alternative is more severe
sanctions--more sanctions. Some people throw that out as if it was
easy. ``More severe sanctions'' comes ``trippingly on the tongue,'' as
Shakespeare would say.

What is missing in this discussion is that we are not the only player
here. This is not Barack Obama and the Supreme Leader. This is not the
United States and Iran. This includes five other major countries,
members of the Security Council of the United Nations, major countries
that are involved in this whole discussion and negotiation, but most
importantly, they are engaged in the sanctions.

There is no doubt that our sanctions are important, but it is not
only our unilateral sanctions that are necessarily providing all of the
pressure on Iran. In fact, an argument can be made that it is the
participation in sanctions by other countries in the world, not only by
the P5+1, but by other countries as well that are not buying Iranian
oil. We have not bought Iranian oil for 35 or 40 years. But people not
buying Iranian oil include countries such as China, India, and Japan.
Their decisions are contributing to the pressure that has brought Iran
to the negotiating table.

If the world decides this is a sufficient deal and sufficiently
restricts Iran and that the verification is as vigorous as it needs to
be--if the world decides that and we say, the heck with you, we are
walking away, they may say that we have taken that step unilaterally
and against the best judgment of what this deal means for keeping Iran
from a nuclear weapon. Then the sanctions regime starts to fray, and,
indeed, it starts to unwind. We can do all we want. We can stomp our
feet and do more sanctions, but if the rest of the world is not with
us, it is not going to be effective.

The idea that somehow in this body, in this Congress, in this city we
unilaterally can make the decision to impose additional sanctions that
will bring Iran to its knees when the rest of the world doesn't agree
with us is not a valid observation. So it is not so easy to say, oh,
well, the alternative here is that if we don't like this deal, we will
just go to more sanctions.

Now, if the other members of our negotiating group decide they agree
with us that it is not a good deal, then sanctions will continue and,
indeed, probably strengthen. But I don't think we should feel that we
have this kind of unilateral ``the heck with the rest of the world, we
are going to do this ourselves'' mentality. I think that is a very
important point to understand, that we are part of an international
community that is negotiating this deal, and what other members of the
community are doing in the way of sanctions is important, as well as
our sanctions.

Of course, the other alternative is military action. The other
alternative is some kind of strike. There are various estimates I have
heard in various forums and settings, but the most common estimate I
have heard is that we could destroy their entire atomic infrastructure.
We could level the buildings, destroy all the centrifuges, and we would
set back their nuclear weapons program by 2 to 3 years. But what if we
did that? We set it back by 2 to 3 years. We can't erase the knowledge
they have. We have simply erased their infrastructure. The
infrastructure can be rebuilt, and three things will have changed: No.
1, they will have the knowledge; No. 2, they will never ever negotiate;
and No. 3, we will have created enemies of an entire new generation of
Iranian people. We will have alienated those people to the point where
it will be impossible to negotiate, and we will be in a situation of
some kind of military intervention as far as the eye can see.

The military option has to be on the table. The President has to
retain that option, and he has. But I think we have to be realistic
about what that option means and the commitment it entails both from us
and our allies. I am not saying it is off the table. I am not saying it
would never happen. But what I am saying is we have to assess the
negotiated arrangement in light of the realities of either the
deterioration of the sanctions regime or the realities of facing
military action.

Finally, I know that as this debate continues there are going to be a
series of amendments and a lot of those amendments are going to be
appealing. For example, as part of the condition of the deal, Iran
shall recognize Israel's right to exist or as part of the negotiation
of the deal, Iran must forswear terrorism or the President has to
certify that Iran forswears terrorism. Those are desirable, but they
will never happen. Iran will not agree to those. So when we propose an
amendment such as that, what we are really saying is we don't want an
agreement, because that is never going to be an idea they are going to
accept.

I would submit I think Iran is a mischievous--that is too light a
word--a dangerous country in terms of exporting terrorism. We see it
throughout the region. There is only one scenario worse than an Iran
that is attempting to support terrorism and destabilize regimes in the
region, and that is an Iran that is supporting terrorism, destabilizing
the region, armed with nuclear weapons.

We can't solve all the problems in the region with this agreement.
The purpose of this agreement is to keep Iran from achieving a nuclear
weapon. That is what we have to keep our eye on. And if amendments--no
matter how desirable, no matter how good they sound, no matter how
politically appealing, if those amendments will undercut or effectively
eliminate our ability to keep our eye on the main ball, which is to
keep them from having nuclear weapons, those amendments will not serve
us, our interests, Israel's interests, the Middle East's interests, or
the world's interests.

We have to focus on what it is we are trying to achieve, and what it
is we are trying to achieve is incredibly important. A nuclear-armed
Iran is a danger to the region, and it is a danger to the world. Right
now, I think it is a very pivotal moment as to whether we are going to
be able to achieve a realistic agreement that will make that less
likely.

Now, it may be that the agreement which we agree to and which goes
into place doesn't work. It may be that they cheat. I would submit that
at that point, we will be right where we are now. We can then talk with
the rest of the world about additional sanctions. We do have the
military option. We are no worse off than we are if we at least try to
achieve a resolution of this grave issue through diplomacy,
negotiation, and working with the rest of the world to try to eliminate
this one problem.

We are not going to eliminate all the world's problems with this one
arrangement or negotiation, but if we can keep Iran, through this
process, from achieving a nuclear weapon, from aspiring to a nuclear
weapon, then we will have achieved something important for ourselves,
for the future generations not only in the Middle East but in America
and the world.

Before I close, I would like to share my thoughts on the role of
Chairman Corker and Ranking Member Cardin in bringing this matter to us
in a thoughtful, responsible, deliberative way. This is the way the Senate is supposed to work--committee consideration, debate, discussion, review of amendments, and bringing a bill to the floor for discussion and debate. I wish to acknowledge the
work of the Senator from Tennessee, who has taken this so seriously and
who is doing it in the best traditions of this body.

I think we are embarking upon an important and solemn project here
that can have enormous ramifications for ourselves and for our
posterity.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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