[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 133 (Wednesday, September 16, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H6010-H6012]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         IRAN NUCLEAR AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Buck). 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, actually, there are some people that it is 
more of a pleasure to work in this House with than others.
  Congressman Buck, you are one of those that it is a real honor and 
privilege to work with.
  Mr. Speaker, I am back here on the floor to talk about one of the 
most important issues, maybe the most important issue, of this 
Congress, recent Congresses, maybe future Congresses, because it has to 
do with whether or not the Republican-marked majority in the Senate are 
going to just appear to oppose the Iranian agreement or if they are 
going to stop it.
  The Corker-Cardin bill was done, I have no reason to doubt, with the 
best of intentions. I didn't vote for it. I could see what I was afraid 
was coming, and it is what has come. But those that voted for it had a 
legitimate basis for doing so.
  Because the President of the United States, Barack Obama, had said 
this is basically an executive agreement, he doesn't need the Senate's 
vote. And that is true if it is not a treaty.
  We had the Secretary of State say that he was--and he said it--
negotiating a nonbinding agreement. Those were the kind of statements 
from which the Corker-Cardin bill was based.
  And so that bill gave the House and the Senate each a vote on 
something that was considered to be a nonbinding executive agreement 
with Iran. However, after the U.N. Security Council voted on it, 
finally Congress got to see the so-called nonbinding agreement.
  After the U.N. voted on it, then we keep getting messages about: Gee, 
you cannot stop this. Because to stop it would put us in breach of the 
agreement. How can we be in breach of a nonbinding agreement?
  Well, the truth came out once we had a chance to read the so-called 
Iranian deal, Iranian agreement. It is a treaty. There is no question 
it is a treaty.
  I don't care whose law you go under. You cannot amend a treaty with 
anything that falls short of being a treaty itself.
  It is just like here in the House. You can't amend legislation unless 
you amend it with other legislation, although we have bureaucracies 
like the EPA and others who have just decided to go off on their own 
and start legislating against the clear and expressed intent of 
Congress. But it is not lawful. They are acting unlawfully. They are 
acting outside the bounds of the Constitution.

  The President has usurped power that is not his. He has done so in 
setting out an amnesty. He spoke it, as any good monarch would, and 
then the Secretary of Homeland Security put it into memos.
  They effectively changed law from what it was on naturalization and 
immigration passed by Congress, signed by the President. They just 
changed it with the President speaking it and then Jeh Johnson, the 
Secretary of Homeland Security, doing memos.
  Well, that is one thing. It does damage to this country. But when we 
are talking about an agreement which, under most everybody's 
description, will allow Iran to get nuclear weapons, there is 
disagreement whether that will be later or sooner.
  But it seems to be almost unanimous that, yes, it is going to allow 
them to get nukes, but it will be later. Others of us know. They have 
cheated on every agreement they have entered since 1979, when they came 
into existence as mullahs running a country.
  Yes, President Carter welcomed the Ayatollah Khomeini as a man of 
peace--a peace of destruction--but they have broken every international 
agreement in which they participated in since 1979.
  They have never been made to account or held accountable for taking 
our embassy employees hostage for over a year.
  For heaven's sake, it is bad enough the administration negotiated 
with a man that is being charged with desertion in return for giving 
radical Islamists, murderers, and terrorists back to continue to create 
havoc and kill Americans and others, but now we are going to give them 
the ability to have an agreement.
  Well, they have broken every agreement they have entered for 36 
years. But this one, we think we in the Obama administration are so 
special that this time they are really not going to breach this 
agreement, despite the fact that the Ayatollah himself and the other 
top leaders still say death to America, they still say they are 
plotting the destruction or overthrow of

[[Page H6011]]

Israel, they still say they are plotting the destruction of the United 
States.
  And all the time they are doing that, we have people who didn't learn 
enough from the disastrous agreement with North Korea that gave the 
North Koreans nuclear weapons. Now they are trying the same strategy.
  If we are nice enough and let them have the wherewithal to produce 
nuclear weapons, then maybe they really won't do that.
  And if they do, it will be years down the road. But you don't even 
know in Congress what the side deals are between the IAEA and Iran.
  So where it says that this will hold Iran at bay for 8 years in this 
provision or until the IAEA states the broader conclusion that Iran's 
nuclear material is being used for peaceful purposes, whichever is 
sooner, we don't even know what the deal between the IAEA and Iran is.
  I heard recently the IAEA has been quoted as saying that, as far as 
they know, their nuclear material is being used for peaceful purposes, 
but they haven't been allowed into the material facilities for years.
  As soon as this administration were to decide the agreement is 
finalized and ratified, the IAEA could turn right around and say: As 
far as we know, it is peaceful materials, but we haven't been allowed 
into the military facilities where they are doing the real nuclear 
weapons work. They are going to give us samples, and the samples they 
gave us showed they are using it for peaceful purposes.
  So surely they wouldn't lie, even though they have lied about every 
international agreement they have entered since 1979.

                              {time}  2015

  For some reason, these people think they wouldn't lie now. I am 
telling you that this Iranian agreement has to be stopped, and the 
United States voters gave the United States Senate over to a majority 
of Republicans in the last elections. As our great President has said, 
elections have consequences.
  Now, he acts like the elections, where we got a majority, Republicans 
got a majority in the House, that that was not meaningful, and he acts 
like the voters giving the majority to Republicans in the Senate, that 
didn't count, but it does count.
  The only way it is going to count, it is going to have consequences, 
is if the Senate stands up--and I would encourage them, their leaders. 
Mr. Speaker, I don't think I am asking too much to ask that the 
Republican leadership have the same or close to the same amount of 
backbone that Harry Reid did when he suspended cloture on 
confirmations. I hope that is not too much to ask.
  Just have Harry Reid--just almost as much as Harry Reid has stood up 
for things he believes in, we are asking the Senate to, the Republicans 
in the Senate, please stand up, almost as much as Harry Reid did when 
he set aside cloture on confirmations.
  Now, a number of us sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader 
McConnell, down the hall, imploring him to treat the Iranian agreement 
as the treaty it is because, if they just go along with the fiction 
that the Iranian agreement does fall under the Corker bill and, 
therefore, it takes two-thirds to disapprove in the Senate, two-thirds 
to disapprove in the House, well, here in the House, we have said the 
Corker bill doesn't apply at this time for sure. I would submit it 
doesn't apply at all.
  All we have to do is rely on our founding document, the Constitution, 
ratified, made effective 1789, written 1787, and this article II, 
section 2, second paragraph, beginning of the paragraph says the 
President ``shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present 
concur.''
  The last thing the President wants is for us to follow the 
Constitution here because the Iranian agreement is a treaty. It 
modifies other treaties, like the nonproliferation treaty.
  It also, as was specifically not contemplated in the Corker bill, it 
deals with allowing them to have weapons, purchase weapons, armaments, 
that was not supposed to be in the Iranian agreement.
  It also addresses the sanctions allowing them to have over $100 
billion, to $150 billion, so that they can use it for terrorist 
activity, so that more Americans and Israeli, Jews, Christians, can be 
terrorized and killed--and I shouldn't fail to mention moderate 
Muslims. They are at every bit as much risk--or more--as Christians and 
Jews because the first people they go after are Muslims that disagree 
with them.
  It is clearly a treaty. All the Senate has to do is take the example 
that Harry Reid gave when he set aside cloture with 51 Democratic 
votes, so they could get through a whole bunch of judges confirmed.
  It must have been in hopes that they could have judges get to the 
bench that might have been stopped otherwise, judges like Justice 
Ginsburg and Justice Kagan, who violated the law by not disqualifying 
themselves on the same-sex marriage ruling. They performed same-sex 
marriages.
  The law requires them to, therefore, disqualify themselves because, 
by their actions and words, they made clear they thought it was 
constitutional. Their impartiality was beyond being reasonably 
questioned. They didn't have any impartiality.
  I guess, when Leader Reid, at the time, got 51 Democrats to remove 
cloture as a problem for their confirmations, he probably did get some 
more judges confirmed.
  This is so much more serious--even then that, as serious as that is--
because, if the Senate does not treat the Iranian agreement as the 
treaty it is, then the President's already saying he is going to treat 
it as being approved--ratified is what that means.
  When our U.S. administration treats the Iranian agreement as 
ratified, then when our dear friend in the Middle East, Israel, defends 
itself, then the United States, under Commander in Chief Barack Obama, 
will have to be at war with Israel for defending themselves against 
Iran continuing to move toward nuclear weapons.
  Now, it is possible, I don't think it will happen, but it is possible 
that squeamish in Israel could win the day by saying--when we said 
``never again'' all those years, we meant never again, except we are 
going to let Iran have nukes and let them nuke us once they have 
nuclear weapons.
  Other than the millions of Jews that may be killed with nuclear 
weapons Iran has, other than that, we mean never again, but I don't 
think that is what a majority of Israelis are going to accept.
  I have such complete respect for Prime Minister Netanyahu--I disagree 
with him on issues; that is what friends often do. I don't believe when 
Prime Minister Netanyahu has said never again, he meant never again 
after the Iranians nuke Israeli cities. They are going to have to do 
something.
  If the Senate, with the Republican majority, does not stand up and 
have a ratification vote on this treaty, the Iranian treaty, and in 
that vote, fail to get the two-thirds to concur, as our Constitution 
requires, then President Obama is going to go forward as if it were 
ratified; and the consequences in the Middle East and to the United 
States will be absolutely devastating.
  As bad as the leadership is in North Korea, they are not radical 
Islamists. The leaders in North Korea do not advocate or at least 
haven't been advocating suicide bombers. They haven't been advocating 
that, if you die blowing up lots of innocent people in Israel or the 
United States, you go to paradise. They don't advocate that in North 
Korea.
  This is 10 times--many, many, many times worse than North Korea 
having nukes. This is something that would be written about in history 
books years from now. If the Republican majority in the Senate doesn't 
stand up, it will be written that, when Iran got nuclear weapons--
because the Republicans that were given the majority in the Senate, 
they were given the majority in the House, but they refused to use 
their majority to vote on ratification of what was clearly a treaty.
  As a result, the President was able to move forward as if it had been 
ratified. Iran got nuclear weapons, and millions of people died, and it 
changed the course of Western civilization forever.
  If they have their way, we are headed for a dark age with nukes 
leading the way, and that will be on our heads. The blood from all 
those lost lives, all of the murders, all of the bombings, all of

[[Page H6012]]

those that occur with the tens of billions of dollars that the Obama 
administration gives to Iran, all of those will not just be on 
President Obama's head, they will be on all of our heads because 
America gave us the majority in the House and Senate, and we didn't 
have the nerve to stop this horrendous, disastrous treaty with Iran.
  Mr. Speaker, I even made an offer. I asked if the House just pass my 
resolution, which laid out this path for stopping this Iranian treaty, 
but it ended with the Senate calling a vote on ratification as a treaty 
the Iranian agreement is, and they fail to get two-thirds, then it 
can't be enforced in any United States court or any court anywhere 
around the world because our Constitution requires ratification, the 
Senate took the vote, and they did not ratify it.

  I said, if the Senate follows up the House and does that, I won't run 
again. I know that will make a lot of people happy, especially those 
that I am making very angry tonight with what I have got to say. I know 
that there is a debate on, so probably most Republicans that are 
politically plugged in are watching the debate.
  I skipped some of the debate. I cannot avoid taking the opportunity, 
at least one more time, to beg our Republicans in the Senate to stop 
this disaster to Western civilization so this chapter never has to be 
written about the demise of Western civilization going back to when the 
Senate refused to use their power to stop a horrendous treaty that gave 
to the biggest supporter of terrorism all of the instrumentality, all 
of the money they needed to set Western civilization back 100 years.
  Here I am, Mr. Speaker. I promised you I wasn't going to take 30 
minutes, but I had to take the time to beg the Senate: Use your 
majority; 51 votes is all it takes.
  Yes, I know, I know, the President normally sends things over that 
get on the executive calendar, and that is when you vote on things for 
the President. I get that.
  The President sent over this agreement. Now, he didn't call it a 
treaty, but you should recognize it is a treaty. You have got one of 
two ways to bring it to the floor. One is you can say it is part of the 
executive calendar.
  He sent it over to us, and under our own procedure, we set that for a 
vote, but it is a treaty, so we are treating it as a treaty, and it is 
made through the executive calendar. I get that. You can do that in the 
Senate. Mr. Speaker, they could.
  Or the other way is just to say: Look, the Constitution does not 
require that the President send us a treaty and say, Here is a treaty, 
now ratify it, for us to take a vote on a treaty on whether or not to 
ratify it.
  That is not in the Constitution. It is in the Senate rules.
  What does it take to suspend the Senate rules? It is 51 votes, and 
the Senate has that many votes that know how bad this deal is.

                              {time}  2030

  So either call it on the Executive Calendar because the President 
submitted, or suspend both the calendar rule and the cloture rule with 
51 votes and then bring it to the floor of the Senate for a vote where 
you won't get the two-thirds needed to ratify it and we can all 
proclaim, ``This Iranian treaty is dead.'' Then we don't risk defending 
Iran against our friend Israel in the beginning of a war that should 
never have to start.
  The alternative to this horrendous treaty is not war. As Michael Oren 
once said, the day Iran believes the United States is a credible threat 
to attack its nuclear facilities is the day they stop enriching 
uranium. And he is exactly right. I hope he doesn't mind my saying 
that, but he was exactly right.
  War is not inevitable. It doesn't need to be. We don't need it. But 
if this Iranian treaty is not stopped by the Senate, it is going to be 
a war that we don't see coming--at least our leaders don't--and 
millions die. It doesn't have to happen. I hope and pray it won't. I 
urge the Senate to do the right thing: Have a vote on ratification, 
stop the Iranian treaty, and then we can get a better deal.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________