[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 23, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4767-S4770]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. CORKER (for himself, Mr. Graham, Mr. Rubio, Mr. McCain, 
        Mr. Risch, and Mr. Johnson of Wisconsin):
  S. 2650. A bill to provide for congressional review of agreements 
relating to Iran's nuclear program, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, in order to set the context, I am going to 
say a few words on the opening, and then enter into a discussion with 
Senator Graham, Senator Rubio, and Senator McCain. But let me say that 
all of us--I know certainly myself--want to start by saying I strongly 
support the negotiations regarding Iran's nuclear program. I also 
strongly support the President's stated goal that we must prevent Iran 
from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
  Congress, in fact, has led the way on this point--Senator Graham, 
Senator Menendez, and many others, Senator Kirk--by building a broad 
multilateral sanctions regime that has forced Iran to the negotiating 
table. That is why today we are introducing the bill, the Iran Nuclear 
Negotiations Act, with a simple message: Allow Congress to weigh in on 
behalf of the American people on what is one of the most important 
national security issues facing our Nation.
  We hope the administration reaches a good agreement over the next 4 
months that will prevent a nuclear-armed Iran from becoming a reality. 
But if and when they reach an agreement, let's bring all the details 
out in the open. Let's examine the agreement in its entirety, and let's 
determine if it is in our national security interests.
  To help ensure that that is the case, Senators Graham, McCain, Rubio, 
and myself are offering this bill that will do three things: First of 
all, have a Congressional review. First, it allows Congress to weigh in 
on any final deal the President reaches with Iran. The bill requires 
the President to submit any final deal to Congress for review, and then 
allows Congress to introduce a joint resolution of disapproval should 
it choose to do so.
  Second, it ensures Iran does not cheat on any final agreement. The 
bill requires the Director of National Intelligence to report on any 
violation by Iran to Congress. If determined there is credible and 
accurate evidence that Iran violated the agreement, all sanctions that 
have been temporarily lifted should be reimposed.
  Thirdly, in order to ensure the interim deal does not become the 
final deal, the bill puts a clock on negotiations. This clock is 
consistent with the timeline the administration itself has outlined. If 
the President does not submit a comprehensive final agreement to 
Congress, all sanctions lifted under the interim agreement would be 
restored immediately on November 28, 2014, 4 days after the end of the 
extension period.
  Let me be clear: Nothing in this bill talks about imposing new 
sanctions of any kind. Nothing in this bill would prohibit Congress 
from seeking further sanctions if it chooses to do so. This bill does 
not dictate the terms of what a final deal should look like. Rather, it 
helps to ensure the Iranians do not use the negotiations as a delaying 
tactic or cover for advancing their program. This bill is all about 
transparency.
  The administration can go out and try to get the best deal possible. 
They simply have to show Congress and the American people the results, 
letting the deal fail or succeed on its own merits. This should be an 
area of broad support and broad bipartisan agreement. Even Secretary 
Kerry, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said 
that any final deal would have to pass muster with Congress.
  I want to stop here. I have some additional comments I might make. I 
know there are numbers of people here who wish to speak. I want to 
close with this. This bill represents a constructive, responsible role 
for Congress to play on this important national security issue to try 
to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, in the hope that Members on both sides 
of the aisle will agree, as Secretary Kerry has stated, that any final 
deal should have to pass muster with Congress and the American people.
  I know Senator Graham from South Carolina--no one has played a bigger 
role in trying to ensure that Iran does not become a nuclear-armed 
country. With that, I would love to hear his thoughts and his reason 
for wanting to be a part, with five Senators, in creating this piece of 
legislation.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Senator very much.
  Senators McCain, Rubio, and Corker on the Foreign Relations 
Committee, all have I think revived the committee, along with Senator 
Menendez. The committee is probably the most effective it has been in a 
very long time. The committee is doing a lot of work in a bipartisan 
fashion. I hope one day this becomes a bipartisan piece of legislation. 
But credit to the three of you all for coming up with this idea. I am 
glad to be part of it.
  I wish to hear from Senator Rubio about his view of why this 
legislation is necessary.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak for a 
few moments. I thank both the Senators from Tennessee, South Carolina, 
and Arizona for allowing me this opportunity to join them in this 
effort.
  For those who are watching at home, I know so many other issues are 
going on around the world--we see the things going on with regard to 
Israel over the last few days; certainly the shootdown of that airplane 
by Ukrainian separatists, being armed by the Russians, is of great 
concern.
  But what should not be lost in all of this is there is another urgent 
matter before the Nation and the world; that is, the ambitions of a 
rogue, radical regime in Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon that they 
will use to hold the world hostage and establish dominance in the 
region and in their stated goal, to destroy Israel and wipe it off the 
face of the Earth.
  What has happened here over the last few months, for those who have 
been following this, is the White House has engaged in negotiations, 
along with some other countries, with Iran to get them to walk away 
from this. These negotiations have been ongoing. I have never been very 
optimistic about it, although we all hope to wake up one day to the 
news that the Ayatollah and the Supreme Leader in Iran and those who 
surround him have somehow decided to

[[Page S4768]]

walk away from this ambition and change their direction.
  These negotiations are not going very well. That is why they have now 
been extended for another 4 months. The administration claims there has 
been great progress being made, although it is not clear what that 
progress is toward. For example, Iran's right to enrich, which they do 
not have one, but this right to enrich uranium has essentially been 
recognized as part of these negotiations, meaning there will be no 
guarantee that Iran cannot at some time in the future come back and 
exploit this agreement to develop nuclear weapons. If they keep the 
machines, and if they keep the process in place to enrich uranium, if 
they decide at some point in the future to go from a symbolic nuclear 
program, or a nascent one, into a full-fledged weapons one, they can do 
that rather quickly.
  That is what they have agreed to do, already allowed them to retain a 
right to enrich. That, in and of itself, should be reason, in my 
opinion--perhaps it is not shared by others but in my opinion--to pull 
the plug on these negotiations. But it is not even clear in this 
instance that the administration is still insisting that Iran dismantle 
all of its nuclear-related facilities. In fact, according to some press 
reports, the Iranians want to keep all of their current centrifuges and 
the United States is supposedly open to allowing Iran to retain 
thousands of them. Iran's Supreme Leader even said recently that they 
need a larger enrichment capability than the one they currently have.
  Another thing that has happened as part of this extension is that the 
P5+1 countries are going to allow Iran to access another $2.8 billion 
in sanctions relief. Basically what they have done here is they have 
forced the hand of this extension, and they get even more relief as a 
result of it.
  I am also worried that the administration seems willing to allow Iran 
to have even more than 4 months to provide simply answers about its 
past work on nuclear weapons.
  If they are not even willing to come clean on what they have done in 
the past, how can we possibly treat them as a reliable, responsible 
actor. Beyond that, there seems to be no attention whatsoever paid to 
the need to address Iran's ballistic missile program, its ICBMs. There 
is only one reason why you have ICBMs and that is these are long-range 
rockets capable of one day reaching the United States as they continue 
to develop them. The only reason they would even have one of those is 
to put a nuclear warhead on it. Just imagine a world where Iran has 
nuclear weapons capable of reaching this very city or New York or any 
part of the continental United States.
  It would be all-out chaos. They would now have to be treated very 
differently, and they would basically be able to act with impunity 
anywhere in the world. And that reaches my last point. Absent in this 
whole conversation and in all these negotiations is any discussion 
about Iran's ongoing sponsorship of terrorism and their ongoing human 
rights violations, including a pastor--an American, with strong links 
to this country--being held unjustly in that country.
  All of this is to say this is the reason why this bill is so 
important. Any final agreement on a matter of this consequence should 
be reviewed by this body, should come before Congress, and Congress 
should have the ability to provide oversight. The absence of that, I 
believe, unfortunately, leaves us vulnerable, not only to a terrible 
deal but to a dangerous one that could potentially endanger the future 
of our allies and even of our own country.
  I am grateful to join these Senators. I don't know who would want to 
speak next. I know all of my colleagues--I know the Senator from 
Arizona has spent a tremendous amount of time sounding the alarm on the 
danger--not just of this deal--that Iran poses in this region.
  I would be interested in hearing from the Senator from Arizona on his 
views about this extension.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator from Florida and I thank him for his 
advocacy for freedom and democracy throughout the world. Frankly, I 
have been incredibly impressed with his knowledge and depth, including 
in our own hemisphere, which I think he and I would agree has been very 
much ignored. There are enormous challenges ahead there as well.
  I would ask a couple of questions of my friend from Tennessee and my 
friend from South Carolina.
  Isn't it true that in order to have a true nuclear capability you 
have to have a warhead and you have to have a delivery system, and the 
Iranians are proceeding apace forward in acquiring those capabilities? 
Would anybody believe that if they were truly interested in not going 
to nuclear weapons, they would not be spending time and effort on that 
capability?
  Doesn't that destroy any credibility they might have about a 
commitment to not continue the development of nuclear weapons?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Well, I would say that if there was a group of people in 
the world to be suspicious of, I would put Iran very close to the top 
of that list.
  The international intelligence community believes they have tried to 
militarize their nuclear program in the past. Senator Rubio made a good 
point. They deny this, but before you go forward, you would want to 
answer that question: Were they engaged in militarization of what was 
claimed to be a peaceful nuclear power program?
  Second, why would you go through all of this upheaval, build a 
nuclear powerplant secretly at the bottom of a mountain, if all you 
wanted to do was have peaceful nuclear power? None of this really adds 
up. Why do you need an ICBM if all you want to do is produce peaceful 
nuclear power?
  Having said that, suspicion is warranted here. But more than anything 
else, the final deal that may be reached should come to this body 
because I would suggest that of all the problems in the world today, 
this is the top of the list for me.
  If they did break out as did North Korea, if a bad deal turned into a 
dangerous deal just as with North Korea, Sunni Arabs would respond in 
kind and we are on the road to Armageddon. I cannot think of a much 
worse scenario for our national security than the ayatollahs with 
nukes. I cannot think of a much more direct threat to the survival of 
the State of Israel than ayatollahs in Iran with nukes. I can't believe 
the Sunni Arabs would allow the Shia Persians to have a nuclear 
capability unanswered.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would ask my friend from Tennessee, was he surprised 
and shocked that there would be an extension of these negotiations? Was 
he shocked and surprised that the end date is now after the midterm 
elections that we have in the United States of America?
  Was he shocked that even though there has not been ``sufficient 
progress,'' there was still more relaxation of the sanctions, which 
then gives the Iranians billions of dollars worth of a boost to their 
economy? Was he surprised and shocked that this extension took place?

  Mr. CORKER. Obviously, just the way the Senator asks the question--
and obviously nobody in this Senate has spent more time on these issues 
than the Senator from Arizona--and I thank the Senator so much for his 
leadership on the Armed Services Committee and also on the Foreign 
Relations Committee and on all of these issues--absolutely not.
  When you have a deal that is aimed, that says there is a built-in 
extension, you know that people aren't going to focus until the very 
end. So we expected there to be an extension. I was very disappointed, 
though, to know that we were giving additional sanctions relief.
  I am very concerned because of the way this has happened. In March 
the administration agreed to allow them to enrich uranium, which was a 
big setback. I mean, we don't allow our best friends. We approved one, 
two, three agreements. The Senator and I just did one the other day in 
the committee with Senator Rubio. Senator Risch is also a part of this 
bill. But with our closest friends and allies we do not approve 
enrichment.
  So here we are really doing something that will undo many of the 
agreements that we have and certainly have--as Senator Graham of South 
Carolina mentioned--a tremendous impact on the region. There is no 
question people in the Arabian Peninsula right across the strait are 
looking at a

[[Page S4769]]

country that has been their foe--and looking at potentially their 
having the capability to enrich uranium. Yes, this agreement started in 
a very bad place, but I think we all want to see a diplomatic solution. 
We want this to be successful.
  I would add that Rouhani has the Supreme Leader whom he has to go 
back and talk to. He can always use that. The Supreme Leader, as 
Senator Graham mentioned, wants 100,000 centrifuges--not the 19,000 
centrifuges they have.
  I would say to our administration to have us as a backstop--where 
Congress has to approve this. That would actually be an aid to them as 
they move down this negotiating path. I look at this as an asset to 
them, and I look at our fulfilling our responsibilities if this bill 
becomes law. I thank the Senator for asking.
  Mr. McCAIN. Finally, could I ask the Senator from Florida, we judge 
nations by their behavior, I believe. In fact, we don't view them in a 
vacuum. For example, the President of the United States said that if 
Syria crossed the red line in the use of chemical weapons, we would 
have to respond, and obviously we didn't.
  Meanwhile, 170,000 people have been slaughtered--men, women, and 
children. So isn't it appropriate for us to not look at the Iranians in 
a very narrow spectrum but to look at overall behavior going all the 
way back to the bombing of the barracks in Beirut, the USS Cole, and a 
plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador here? And maybe the worst, most of 
all, is the Revolutionary Guard that has gone into Syria and the 
incredible flow of weapons and training on the part of the Iranians 
which has turned the tide in favor of Bashar al-Assad.
  What about the Iranian missiles, some of which are threatening and 
raining down on Israel. Shouldn't we understand better? Shouldn't the 
American people and the world understand better what we are dealing 
with--a country with leaders who are dedicated to the extinction of 
everything we stand for and believe in? Therefore, wouldn't that impact 
our calculations as to their sincerity about a nuclear weapons program?
  Mr. RUBIO. I think the Senator from Arizona touches on the exact 
point.
  First, we have to understand Iran is the world's leading state 
sponsor of terrorism. No nation on Earth uses terrorism as an active 
form of tradecraft as they do. They use terrorism the way we use 
military forces when necessary. They view it as a very active part of 
their agenda.
  The Senator is correct. Virtually every major terrorist organization 
in the Middle East, absent a couple, they provide extraordinary 
assistance to. I think the Senator touched on another point: What is 
their goal? That is important to understand.
  What is the Iranians' goal in these negotiations? In my mind those 
goals are quite clear. In fact, it is shocking to me because I know the 
administration knows this as well.
  The goal of Iran is pretty simple. They want relief from as many 
sanctions as possible without agreeing to any irreversible concessions 
on their nuclear program.
  Let's go through what they want to achieve. They want to be able to 
achieve or obtain an internationally recognized right to enrich--check.
  They want the capability to enrich, process in the future, and keep 
that much in place as possible. They have already gotten that--check.
  They want to continue to develop their long-range rockets and missile 
capabilities so that one day they can be in that position where, when 
we negotiate with them in the future on anything else, they are 
untouchable because they can launch a nuclear attack against the United 
States and certainly against our allies. They continue to do that--
check.
  The Iranians in this whole negotiation view themselves to be in a 
position of strength. To be quite frank, they believe that our 
President wants this deal more than they do. They believe he wants this 
deal more than they do, and that is what puts them in this tremendous 
position of strength.
  The result is that these negotiations are not going to, in my view--I 
hope that I am wrong. I hope that tomorrow when we open the paper and 
read: You know what. They have changed their mind. They don't want to 
do any more terrorism--no more rockets and no nuclear weapons program--
and they have become just a normal government in a normal country. 
Don't hold your hopes out for that because that is not what they have 
shown in the past. That is not what they are doing now, and they are 
negotiating from a position of strength because they know the President 
wants a deal much more than they want or need a deal.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would ask again, going full circle with the Senator 
from South Carolina, wouldn't we actually be helping the administration 
at the negotiating table to say wait a minute, we have a Congress full 
of people who have spent a lot of time on this issue, are very 
skeptical and, one, are going to have to be convinced of this deal?
  Wouldn't we actually be strengthening the United States' hand at the 
bargaining table, in the Senator's view, if it were something of this 
magnitude that Congress would have to be involved in, as we have been 
in other major treaties that have been made, some of them much less 
significant than this agreement?
  Mr. GRAHAM. The answer, unequivocally to me would be yes, assuming 
one thing: that those of us in this body would handle this in a mature 
fashion, assuming that Republicans would not vote no because this is 
the Obama deal and Democrats would not be tempted to vote yes because 
their President did this, a Democratic President.
  I have confidence in the body that they would not do that. Let me 
tell you why. There are a lot of treaties out there that affect our 
national security. I can't think of an event in my life that is going 
to affect our national security one way or the other greater than the 
Iranian nuclear deal that I think is coming.
  If a Republican scuttled the deal that was good, you would have a 
very unique place in history because you would have done a disservice 
to our country and the world at large.
  Is it possible to know that it is a good deal? Yes, because the 
Israelis would comment on it. The Sunni Arab world would comment on it. 
If it is truly a deal unlike North Korea, which led to a bad outcome, I 
think you would have a score of people, including me, that would 
acknowledge that the President did the world a great service.
  If it is a bad deal, if Senator Rubio is right that they want to 
check the box and get a deal for the sake of getting a deal, I hope my 
Democratic colleagues would stand and say: This will come back to bite 
us as a nation.
  I have confidence the body can do this because I can't think of 
anything more serious we will vote on other than going to war.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator from Tennessee. As the Senator from 
South Carolina noted, the relationship that exists between the Senator 
from Tennessee and the Senator from New Jersey, I believe, has 
reinvigorated the Foreign Relations Committee in a very incredible way. 
What has taken place, thanks to that bipartisanship and hard work, has 
really been some remarkable results.
  Frankly, thanks to the Senator's leadership and under the chairman, 
we have been able to have a significant impact on the conduct of 
national security in what I would argue is probably the greatest 
turmoil in my lifetime.
  I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his great work.
  Mr. CORKER. If I could, since the Senator and I have worked together 
on the committee, the administration came to us when they didn't have 
to. They came to us on the authorization for the use of force in Syria. 
We came together over a very short amount of time, Democrats and 
Republicans, and crafted something of which I am very proud. It didn't 
end up coming to the floor because a different course of action was 
taken, but the fact is that the administration sought our input on 
something that, as the Senator from South Carolina just mentioned, may 
pale compared to the impact of this Iranian negotiation relative to 
nuclear arms.
  So this is something that is very important. I agree with the Senator 
from South Carolina--I believe that if something is presented, we would 
act very much in the same manner. It would be a sober discussion. 
People would understand the importance of it. And I

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think, from the administration's standpoint, the Senate saying grace 
over it and approving it gives him additional buy-in from the American 
people that we are behind him if they negotiate a good deal. On the 
other hand, if they don't, obviously we should have the right to weigh 
in and keep the sanctions that have been put in place by us.
  Everybody says: Well, the administration still has to come back and 
talk with you all about sanctions.
  That is not true. There is a waiver provision in there. They can't be 
undone permanently. But I think it gives us the appropriate say-so.
  I thank the Senator so much for his leadership and for everybody's 
time on the floor and for working on this issue. Hopefully, as the 
Senator mentioned, this will become something that is very bipartisan.

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