[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 74 (Thursday, May 14, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H2965]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, as the latest round of the P5+1 
Iranian nuclear talks resume this week in Vienna, it is important for 
us to highlight just how weak and dangerous this deal is.
  From the moment that President Obama took office, he has sought the 
legacy of having achieved a nuclear agreement with Iran, regardless of 
the cost to our national security. In his first inaugural address, he 
promised to unclench his fist to dictators and followed that up in 
Cairo, telling the Iranian regime that he was willing to move forward 
``without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.''
  Mutual respect, Mr. Speaker? This regime has targeted and killed 
Americans since the Iranian revolution in 1979. This regime was 
responsible for killing and wounding thousands of our U.S. troops in 
Iraq. This murderous regime is destabilizing the region and mocking the 
U.S. by blowing up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier and chanting, 
continually, ``death to America.''
  Now the President is giving Iran not only access to billions of 
dollars, but also international legitimacy. Countries and businesses no 
longer fear doing business with Iran, even though the sanctions are 
still in place. They no longer fear looking like international pariahs, 
helping one of the world's worst human rights abusers and the world's 
largest supporter of global terror because President Obama has 
telegraphed to the world that he trusts the Iranian regime, giving it 
the legitimacy that it would have never gotten without this nuclear 
deal.
  So what do we see now? Well, Russia announced that it will resume 
sales of its surface-to-air missiles to Iran before the ink could even 
dry on the framework agreement, and Putin has said that Russia will 
trade assets like grain and construction equipment in exchange for 
Iranian oil. Iran has also announced that China is going to help it 
build five additional nuclear power plants.
  According to reports, China and Russia have stated that they will not 
support snapback sanctions. Now, snapback sanctions are the cornerstone 
of the deal that the administration has praised as a victory. And U.S. 
oil executives have reportedly begun talks with Iranian officials in 
preparation for the opening of Iran's economy--in Iran, no less.
  Now we hear reports that the Czechs stopped a potentially illegal 
nuclear technology purchase by the Iranians earlier this year. So I 
asked the administration: Did the administration know, and did the P5+1 
know about this violation? Did they choose to ignore it in order to 
forge this framework agreement anyway? All of this in exchange for a 
deal that allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium and to keep every 
key element of its nuclear infrastructure intact.
  The Iranians are winning concession after concession, giving up 
nothing but a few cosmetic and easily reversible changes. Since taking 
office, President Obama has capitulated to Iranian demands to cement 
his legacy of the President who normalized relations with Iran.
  We won't even be able to adequately verify this nuclear agreement, 
despite what the President promises, because he knows that access to 
Iranian sites rests with the Iranian regime. Access to military sites--
where they would more than likely hide some of their nuclear 
infrastructure--isn't in the deal either. It is foolhardy and dangerous 
to believe that Iran will give immediate and unobstructed access 
anytime, anywhere, to all of its sites.
  We are not even forcing the regime to come clean on the possible 
military dimensions of its nuclear program, nor are we addressing its 
ballistic missile program, its support for terror, and its expansionist 
agenda throughout the Middle East. All we are doing is legitimizing one 
of the world's worst and most dangerous regimes at the expense of 
regional and U.S. national security.
  Iran will use this influx of money to continue spreading terror and 
fomenting instability and sectarian conflict across the globe. We have 
seen it in Yemen. We have seen it elsewhere.
  Mr. Speaker, the Middle East is on the brink of collapsing, yet the 
President continues on this dangerous quest for his Iran nuclear deal 
legacy. He has ignored the reality on the ground for political 
considerations and, in doing so, is putting our national security in 
jeopardy and that of our ally, the democratic Jewish State of Israel.

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