[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 130 (Thursday, September 10, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H5937-H5939]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, a wonderful tribute from a man that knows 
courage. He has it, he has shown it, and he knows what it is to stand 
up for what he believes in.
  A lot of great examples have served in this body, and that is what we 
need right now. We face as important an issue as we have had, certainly 
since I have been here, and possibly decades.
  A deal with the devil is what it comes down to, a deal with what 
Ronald Reagan would say is evil. It makes the evil empire of the Soviet 
Union pale in comparison to the evil that Iran's leaders have 
perpetuated, and this administration has done a deal with them.
  Chairman Ed Royce has eloquently pointed out that Iran has violated 
every international agreement they have entered since 1979.
  So wouldn't it fill the definition of insanity if another deal is 
entered by what used to be the lone superpower with the one and only 
country in existence right now in the world that has broken every 
agreement it has entered since 1979?
  If someone were standing back as a historian and looking at what is 
going on right now and were totally objective, he or she would probably 
say: Well, it looks like the fools running the United States are going 
to get what they deserve. They have made a deal with sheer evil. These 
evil leaders have lied. They have broken every agreement they have ever 
entered, and these fools running the United States are going to get 
what they deserve. It is going to happen again. People are going to die 
in greater numbers than ever before.
  What grieves me more than anything is what seems to be the idea of 
some in the House and Senate that: Gee, since Iran is going to get 
nuclear weapons, surely they are going to cheat. They are going to get 
them. They are going to get them sooner rather than later. This deal is 
not going to allow anybody to stop them.
  So what is important here is to provide political cover to 
Republicans. We can do that by acting like we are fighting real hard in 
the House, acting like we are fighting real hard in the Senate. Then we 
lose.
  Then when Iran gets nukes and kills hundreds of thousands or millions 
of people, you say: See, we told you. We did what we could. But the 
trouble is that is not good enough because lives in this country and in 
the nation of Israel are all at stake here.
  We have been told that: Gee, the 15 nations heading up the U.N. 
Security Council, they have agreed; so, it should be binding against 
the United States.
  That argument was attempted to be made by the Secretary of State and 
the President himself, that: Gee, we have to go along because the U.N. 
has already voted.
  Well, yeah, that would be true if there were not something called the 
United States Constitution under which our first President under the 
Constitution took office in 1789.
  And since this has been in effect--our U.S. Constitution, Article II, 
Section 2, second paragraph, has been in effect, he, talking about the 
President, shall have power by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate to make treatise, provided two-thirds of the Senators present 
concur. It is very clear.
  And we also know it is very clear that you cannot have a treaty like 
the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The international agreement that was 
lauded by so many over such a long period of time--you cannot amend an 
international treaty like that unless it is with another treaty. You 
cannot amend that with an executive agreement. You cannot amend that 
with an agreement that is nonbinding.
  Therefore, it is exceedingly clear that what the President and 
Secretary Kerry and Wendy Sherman that did such a good job helping with 
the North Korea deal so they got nuclear weapons--they say it is not a 
treaty. But absolutely it is a treaty.
  So if we are going to uphold our oath of office, we have to 
acknowledge that this is a treaty and implore the Senate to announce 
that, even though the President has not submitted this treaty to them 
for ratification under Article II, since it is a treaty, they had the 
power to bring it up.
  And, yes, there is a convenient Senate rule called cloture that Harry 
Reid actually suspended numerous times in the matter of some 
confirmations so they could get judges on the bench that would uphold 
whatever interpretation of the Constitution this administration cared 
to bring before them.
  But there is a time when the Republicans in the Senate must say: You 
know what. This is too important to let a gaggle of minority Senators 
from the minority party keep us from voting on the most important bill 
of our time. We are not going to let a rule that we make, that we put 
in place, that we can suspend, keep us from having a vote on the most 
important bill of our time, the treaty with Iran.
  So the Senate can suspend, as Harry Reid did, the cloture rule with a 
vote of 51 Senators. Once they have the 51 that suspend cloture in this 
Iranian treaty, then bring the treaty to the floor for a ratification 
vote, it will not get two-thirds.
  And then, once and for all time, it will be clear to everyone, except 
perhaps the President and Secretary Kerry--it will be very clear, as it 
is to constitutional law professors I have talked to--that we are not 
bound by the Iranian treaty with the only country in the world that has 
broken every international agreement they have had since 1979.

                              {time}  2130

  The resolution that I had filed with numerous great cosponsors, it 
points out that the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015--that is 
the Corker-Cardin bill--does not apply to the Joint Comprehensive Plan 
of Action regarding Iran--that is the Iran treaty--submitted to 
Congress on July 19, 2015, because the Joint Comprehensive Plan of 
Action is a treaty, and pursuant to article II of the United States 
Constitution, the Senate must give its advice and consent to 
ratification if the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is to be 
effective and binding upon the United States.
  It also states--because it is a fact--on March 11, 2015, Secretary of 
State John Kerry, in describing the administration's nuclear 
negotiations with Iran, clearly stated that it was ``not negotiating a 
legally binding plan'' with Iran, and therefore, it does not have to be 
submitted to Congress.
  If it were not legally binding, then, no, Secretary Kerry and the 
President do not have to submit it to Congress; but the President and 
the Secretary of State have already given this facade, this charade 
away because they have already said: Well, gee, if Congress doesn't go 
along with it, we will be in breach of the agreement because the U.N. 
has already voted on it.
  A-ha. You said it wasn't legally binding what you were negotiating, 
and now, you are telling us that is not true.
  I mean, it conjures up memories of other statements like: ``If you 
like your insurance, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can 
keep it.'' It conjures up sermons by this administration and this 
President how we had to take out Qadhafi out of Libya for stability of 
the area, that it would

[[Page H5938]]

make the place so much better in North Africa.
  We saw what happened. Qadhafi would not have been removed without 
President Obama bombing on behalf of the rebels that were infused with 
al Qaeda that would end up ultimately attacking our consulate in 
Benghazi and killing four Americans.
  We now see, as I did last week when I was in north Africa, this 
President, this State Department have created massive instability 
across north Africa. It has put tens of millions of people in fear. 
What do you think this crazy migration started from?
  It started from the policies of this President in declaring that 
something that they love calling the Arab Spring but ended up becoming 
a cold, harsh killer of a winter was going to be helped along by the 
United States.
  Some in north Africa reminded me of our President's statement that 
President Mubarak had to go. The President declared he has to go. He 
interfered with what was going on in Egypt. He interfered with an ally, 
not a great guy at all. He created massive instability that allowed the 
Muslim Brother Morsi to take over. Yes, he was elected. Yes, as 
confirmed again this past week, there were plenty of fraudulent votes. 
He alleged to have 12 million or so votes.
  After a year as President of usurping the power under the 
Constitution, totally disregarding the Constitution, taking powers that 
weren't his, moving to become dictator, over 30 million Egyptians rose 
up, went to the street. These were moderate Muslims; these were 
secularists, Christians, Jews that came to the streets and said, with 
one accord, one heart, one voice: We don't want radical Islamists 
running Egypt.
  Our Muslim friends in Afghanistan in the Northern Alliance said the 
same thing, We don't want radical Islamists running Afghanistan, but 
the Egyptian people did it on their own. It may have been the greatest 
peaceful--it was the greatest peaceful uprising in the history of man. 
There have never been that many people peacefully demonstrating.
  What was not peaceful was the Muslim Brotherhood because they want 
the world caliphate. They thought they were on the way with the help of 
President Obama. They were taking Libya. They felt like they were 
taking Algeria, Tunisia, and come on around north Africa and the Middle 
East, they were on their way to that world caliphate they were 
promising they would have, the same world caliphate that the former 
adviser to the Secretary of Homeland Security here in the United States 
tweeted out after another American had his head cut off that the 
international caliphate was inevitable, Americans just needed to get 
used to the idea, a man that I had been warning was a Muslim Brother 
and was a top adviser in this administration and needed to be out.
  Finally, after he made it clear to even the most dense in this 
administration that he was in favor of an international caliphate, 
finally, they had to let him finish his term and let him go by 
retiring.
  Well, the President is still getting that kind of advice, and the 
truth is that it is a disaster. It has done so much damage to this 
country. Those who say this is a great deal are the same people that 
said we had to remove Qadhafi. It created massive instability. It 
created a situation where you have so many deaths as people try to flee 
from north Africa.
  Where do you think they are coming from? What do you think laid the 
groundwork for this? It was this President's intervention in Libya, 
this President's meddling in Egypt.
  We heard the President himself say on national television--
international television because ISIS heard it, that ISIS is junior 
varsity, they are JV. I played on the JV, and I played on the varsity, 
and there is a vast difference. ISIS knew there was a difference. This 
President did not.
  He said, if we could just arm the vetted moderate Syrian rebels, that 
everything would be fine in Syria. We have seen that he has created 
more chaos. He has created tens of thousands of more refugees because 
of his failed policies born out of massive ignorance--or somebody that 
is advising him is not ignorant, they know what they are doing--but it 
is setting the Middle East and north Africa, figuratively speaking, on 
fire and, in many cases, literally speaking.
  We heard over and over of instances where the President's vetted 
moderate Syrian rebels that we spent millions and millions and millions 
of dollars training and arming, they kept having all that incredibly 
upgraded equipment taken over by ISIS. I have been over there. I met 
with the Kurdish commanders. They are begging for up-armored equipment 
so they can at least have some way to stay on the battlefield with ISIS 
that this President has armed through the so-called vetted Syrian 
moderate rebels.
  Well, we heard tonight that Madeleine Albright thinks this is a good 
deal. Well, wow, I feel so much better that Secretary Albright that 
said, along with Wendy Sherman, that helped negotiate the deal with 
Iran, that, Gee, the key to keeping North Korea from having nuclear 
weapons is to give them nuclear power plants, give them the nuclear 
material they need because they are willing to promise, in writing, 
that they won't develop nuclear material or nuclear weapons if we will 
do all that for them. Well, that didn't work out so well.
  People advising this President that were part of the advice--and we 
hear Madeleine Albright thinks that is a good deal? Then if there was 
any doubt in any Republican's mind--I don't think there is--but any 
doubt in any Republican's mind just how horrendous this deal is, that 
had to be completely dispelled tonight when we heard from our friend on 
the Democratic side that Hank Paulson, the former Secretary of the 
Treasury, thinks this is the thing to do.

  This is the guy that gave us TARP. This is the guy that said when we 
asked, Well, if you don't know how much mortgage-backed securities are 
worth, how do you know you need $700 billion, and in our conference 
call with other Republicans, the answer to that question was, Well, we 
just needed a really big number.
  That is the guy that we are told, tonight, is assuring us that this 
deal with Iran is the way to go.
  On August 6, 2015, White House press secretary Josh Earnest, at a 
White House press briefing, stated: ``We don't need Congress to approve 
this Iran nuclear deal.''
  On July 28, 2015, Secretary Kerry, at a hearing before the House 
Committee on Foreign Affairs, stated the reason why the Iran nuclear 
agreement is not considered a treaty is because it has become 
physically impossible to pass a treaty through the United States Senate 
anymore. It has become impossible to schedule. It has become impossible 
to pass.
  Two days after Secretary Kerry testified to that, that that was the 
reason he didn't bring this treaty as a treaty, well, the United States 
formally ratified the amendment to the Convention on the Physical 
Protection of Nuclear Material when Henry S. Ensher, the Department of 
State's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, delivered 
the United States' instruments of ratification to the IAEA. Whoops--it 
turns out Secretary Kerry's testimony was not true. I don't think he 
lied. I just think he was that ignorant.
  On June 4, 2015, less than 2 months before Secretary Kerry testified 
it had become physically impossible for the Senate to ratify treaties, 
he stated the Department of State is ``preparing the instruments of 
ratification of several important treaties'' and that he wants ``to 
personally thank the U.S. Congress for their efforts on the 
implementing legislation for the nuclear securities treaties.''
  Well, I don't think he was lying or ignorant. I just think he forgot 
that he had just thanked us for passing these treaties--or at least the 
Senate for ratifying these treaties. He forgot that he had just done 
that when he said it is physically impossible to ratify a treaty 
anymore.
  May 7, 2015, the Senate held a vote on the Iran Nuclear Agreement 
Review Act of 2015, commonly referred to as the Corker-Cardin bill, in 
which every Senator voted on that bill with the understanding that the 
Iran nuclear agreement was an executive agreement, not a treaty, and 
the United States' sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program would 
remain in place.
  The Corker-Cardin bill actually states:


[[Page H5939]]


  

       It is the sense of Congress that United States sanctions on 
     Iran for ballistic missiles will remain in place under an 
     agreement related to the nuclear program of Iran that 
     includes the United States.

  The Corker-Cardin bill was intended as a review of the application of 
statutory sanctions against only Iran's nuclear program. The Corker-
Cardin bill prescribes a process for congressional review only of 
``agreements with Iran related to the nuclear program of Iran.''
  Under subsection (b) and (c) of section 135 of the Atomic Energy Act 
of 1954, as added by the Corker-Cardin bill, lawmakers may resolve to 
approve, disapprove, or take no action on nuclear agreements with Iran.
  Under section 135(d) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as added by 
the Corker-Cardin bill, it calls for ``congressional oversight of 
Iranian compliance with nuclear agreements.''
  It is pretty easy to recall for those of us with a half-decent memory 
that actually, under the bill, the treaty being proposed by this 
administration, the Iran treaty actually doesn't allow Congress 
oversight.

                              {time}  2145

  Not only does it not allow Congress the oversight, it says the IAEA 
is going to have oversight, not Congress, and we don't even know the 
arrangement that has been negotiated or is being negotiated between the 
IAEA and Iran.
  But we do know this. My friends across the aisle said in debate 
today--and I was amazed that this statement would be made--that if Iran 
cheats, we will know it. That was a quote from one of my friends across 
the aisle.
  Well, if Iran cheats, we won't know it. We don't even know if the 
IAEA has a decent agreement. But we know this. Iran has made clear they 
will not allow the IAEA inspectors to go to their military sites. They 
made that clear in every communication they have had since this treaty 
came forward. And then we find out, actually, Iran has said: We are 
going to provide samples to you.
  Oh, so, as my Democratic friend said, if Iran cheats, we will know 
it. What that means is when Iran cheats, they are going to bring 
samples from the area they won't let the IAEA inspect and say: Here are 
the samples that let you know we cheated, because our Democratic 
friends in Congress knew if we cheated, we would let you know we are 
cheating.
  Seriously? Is that how naive this government has gotten?
  We were told in debate by a Democratic friend that it would have been 
a mistake to demand the release of U.S. hostages. Oh, yeah, that would 
have been a mistake, that before we enter any negotiation, they have to 
show good faith by releasing the hostages so that we know that they are 
a country with whom we can deal? Of course that was the right thing to 
do.
  And $100 billion to $150 billion going to Iran under this deal is 
more money than we have given or used to help Israel with since Israel 
came into being again in the late 1940s. And yet we are going to give 
it not to our close ally Israel. We are going to give it to their worst 
enemy that has even said this past week that they were plotting to 
overthrow Israel. This week they have said that they are plotting to 
overthrow Israel, and they are coming for the United States.
  I have heard people, I believe, Mr. Speaker, wrongly compare Neville 
Chamberlain to the current situation that the President and Secretary 
Kerry have proposed. I would submit that that is a grossly unfair 
comparison for Neville Chamberlain, because at the time Neville 
Chamberlain had that paper that he got Hitler to sign that caused him 
to say, ``This is peace for our time''--a lot of papers messed it up 
and said ``peace in our time''; he said ``peace for our time''--at the 
time Chamberlain did that, Hitler had not violated every international 
agreement he had entered. He hadn't done that. Iran has.
  At the time Neville Chamberlain said, ``This is peace for our time,'' 
Hitler had not been saying, ``Death to England''; ``death to France''; 
``death to the countries in Europe.'' He had not been saying that. 
Iranian leaders have been, including the Ayatollah.
  At the time Neville Chamberlain said this agreement means ``peace for 
our time,'' Hitler had not publicly stated he was plotting the 
overthrow of any of the countries in the area. Iran has. They are 
plotting the overthrow of Israel and to take out the United States.
  Our friend Tom Cole said in the Rules Committee this week that he was 
concerned that this agreement will cause an arms race, and he is 
exactly right. That was confirmed again this past week as I was over 
there talking to people that know in the Egyptian Government.
  The Saudis are already working a deal to buy nukes. The Saudis know 
they have got to have them because Iran is going to have them under 
this Iranian treaty if we don't stop the treaty.
  You stop the treaty by the Senate voting on it as a treaty and not 
getting to two-thirds. That means it is not binding against the United 
States. Other countries in the area--Jordan, Egypt, even Libya, 
Lebanon, and all these countries--know they are going to have to have 
nukes if they are going to survive the area.
  It is going to create the proliferation of nuclear weapons like there 
has never been in the world. And as someone said, mutually assured 
destruction with Russia was a deterrent, but with Iran, it is an 
incentive.
  This is such a dangerous time. But the Iranian treaty amends the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in several places. You can't amend a 
treaty unless you are amending it with another treaty.
  This is a treaty the Senate needs to step up and say it is a treaty. 
And for heaven's sake, this is far more important a situation where we 
suspend the cloture rule so that we do not allow a small segment of 
radicals supporting Iran to keep us from voting on the most important 
bill of our time. And then vote, and when you don't get two-thirds it 
is not ratified.
  What the House is doing this week is actually not a bad strategy for 
the House because, as a treaty, we don't get a vote. But if we stand 
idly by and let the President treat it as if it has been ratified, then 
Israel will have to defend itself. Under the Iranian treaty, we will 
have to defend Iran, not Israel, and the unthinkable will happen, and 
that is the United States and Iran will be on the same side against 
Israel. We have got to stop that.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________