[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 131 (Friday, September 11, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             APPROVAL OF JOINT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN OF ACTION

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                               speech of

                             HON. PAUL COOK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 10, 2015

  Mr. COOK. Mr. Speaker, over the course of this debate, you're going 
to hear about the failures of this deal from members of both parties. 
You'll hear about how this deal fails to provide the ``anytime, 
anywhere'' inspections that the Administration promised. You'll hear 
about how it relies on Iran to self-inspect at military nuclear 
facilities such as Parchin. And you'll hear about how Iran will get 
over a hundred billion dollars in immediate sanctions relief in 
exchange for a limited inspections regime that expires within 15 years. 
These are all important reasons to reject this deal, but I want to 
focus on something different: the character of the Iranian regime.
  The Islamic Republic of Iran's founding action 35 years ago was to 
declare war on the United States, violating all international laws and 
agreements by invading our embassy and taking our diplomats hostage. 
Since then, Iran has been complicit in the murders of thousands of our 
soldiers. Iran's Lebanese terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, murdered hundreds 
of Marines in Lebanon in the 1980s, and in the last decade, Iranian-
sponsored militias murdered thousands of American service members in 
Iraq. As we debate this deal today, Iran continues to hold American 
hostages. This is a regime that was born in terror and that exists to 
spread terror across the world.
  It's the character of the Iranian regime that makes its pursuit of 
nuclear weapons so dangerous. Countries like Japan have enough 
stockpiled plutonium for thousands of bombs, but because it doesn't 
sponsor terror or threaten its neighbors, no one is concerned with the 
Japanese nuclear power industry. An Iranian regime that espouses terror 
and threatens genocide can never be allowed to have a nuclear program, 
not today, not in ten years, not in a century.
  Iran's development of a nuclear weapon will have repercussions far 
beyond its own borders. Iran's terrorist allies are currently waging 
war against America's allies across the Middle East. Iranian proxies 
Hezbollah and Hamas continue to threaten Israel with tens of thousands 
of rockets, Iranian death squads in Iraq and Syria have killed tens of 
thousands of people, and Iranian backed rebels overthrew the pro-
American government of Yemen. This is not ancient history; this is all 
within the past year.
  Any deal that the United States signs must result in the 
dismantlement, destruction, and irreversible rollback of Iran's nuclear 
program. There is no acceptable level of enrichment for an Iran that 
sponsors terrorism and threatens its neighbors. If Iran won't accept a 
deal on these terms, then the United States should keep the sanctions 
in place and tighten them until they force the Iranian regime to its 
knees. Iran will never be a normal nation as long as its government is 
ruled by radicals whose ideology is terror. When Ronald Reagan was 
pursuing nuclear arms reduction negotiations with the Soviet Union, he 
famously operated under the principle of ``Trust, but verify.'' In 
contrast, this deal requires blind trust without any meaningful 
verification. It does nothing to change the character of the Iranian 
regime and instead counts on the good will of a terrorist state that 
openly proclaims ``Death to America.'' I refuse to trust the security 
of America and our allies to the Iranian regime's promises. I don't 
trust Iran and I cannot support this deal.

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