[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 74 (Tuesday, May 8, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2537-S2538]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nuclear Agreement with Iran

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I think we should be honest with ourselves 
and the people around the world and present the reality of what Iran is 
today.
  Iran pursues a host of dangerous activities around the world that 
threaten the United States, its interests, and its allies. It is 
fomenting a proxy war in Yemen. It supports Hezbollah and Hamas. It 
appears to be using its foothold in Syria to test Israel's defenses. 
And in tragic irony, Iran supports the Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad, 
who has stooped to using chemical weapons and barrel bombs to kill his 
own people. How a regime like the Iranian regime--whose own people 
suffered under heinous chemical attacks from Iran during the Iran-Iraq 
War--can stand behind Assad and Syria is incredible.
  Having said that, we entered into an agreement with Iran to stop them 
from developing a nuclear weapon. Despite all these other challenges 
and all the differences we continue to have with Iran, we said that--
gathering together with allies around the world--we wanted to make 
certain that Iran did not develop a nuclear weapon. There were lengthy 
negotiations and agreements, which led to the nuclear agreement with 
Iran to stop its development of nuclear weapons. I think it was a 
critically important step forward because Iran with a nuclear weapon 
would be a danger not only to Israel and the Middle East but also to 
the world.
  It was that agreement which I supported and which was overwhelmingly 
supported by Democrats in the Senate when President Obama negotiated 
it. The Republicans opposed it. The candidate for President on the 
Republican side, Mr. Trump, said that it was a terrible agreement, and 
he thought we should never have entered into it. He had all sorts of 
derogatory things to say about the Iran nuclear agreement. But the fact 
is, that agreement went in place and was implemented. International 
inspectors were sent into Iran. Those inspectors enforced that 
agreement and have reported to the United States--and personally to 
Members of the Senate, including me--repeatedly that Iran is complying 
with the terms of this agreement and is not developing a nuclear 
weapon. For all of the differences we have with Iran, the facts and the 
evidence are clear: They were living up to the terms of the nuclear 
agreement so that they would not develop a nuclear weapon and threaten 
Israel and that region of the world.
  Despite the progress made by this agreement, today President Trump 
announced his decision to halt the waiver of sanctions related to Iran 
and the nuclear agreement--in essence, to step away from the agreement 
and to say that the United States will no longer be party to it. That 
nuclear agreement with Iran removed the threat of nuclear weapons being 
used to pursue destabilizing Iranian activities. Just imagine how hard 
and difficult it would be to push back on Iranian aggression if, in 
fact, they had a nuclear weapon. The purpose of the agreement was to 
avoid that possibility--the very agreement President Trump walked away 
from today.
  Because of this agreement, Iran's nuclear weapon program has been 
stopped in its tracks. In fact, you have to go back over 10 years to 
find any plans being made in Iran in the past to even consider it. The 
agreement was working. International inspectors have unprecedented 
access to Iran to watch for cheating. Iran does not have a nuclear 
weapon or a quick breakout ability to make one. These are real 
accomplishments toward world peace.
  We live in a dangerous world. President Trump's decision today will 
make it more dangerous. By eliminating U.S. participation in this 
agreement to stop the development of nuclear weapons in Iran, we run 
the real possibility that terrible things will follow--terrible things 
that will cost human life and cause even more misery around this world.
  Let's be clear. That agreement clearly states that ``Iran reaffirms 
that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire 
any nuclear weapons.'' That is an unequivocal statement. And to ensure 
that Iran never does, the agreement provided for ongoing inspections by 
the International Atomic Energy Agency. They weren't just inspecting 
the obvious places; they were inspecting the entire supply chain that 
Iran would have to turn to to develop a nuclear weapon.
  Ernest Moniz was Secretary of Energy under President Obama. He is a 
physicist by training. He has received global recognition for his 
expertise. He sat at the table because he knows what it takes to 
develop a nuclear weapon. He put into this agreement which President 
Trump is walking away from today the kind of access for inspection that 
gives us the assurance that Iran cannot cheat, and if they tried, we 
would catch them.
  Anyone arguing that Iran is allowed to build a nuclear bomb under 
this agreement after a certain period is simply wrong and misleading 
the American people. I have met with IAEA Director General Amano 
several times. Each time, I was very blunt and direct with him: Tell me 
what your experience has been in Iran. Tell me, if your inspectors 
wanted to go through a certain door, inspect a certain installation, go 
inside a certain facility, were they stopped by Iran?
  He told me: If we were stopped and protested, they opened the door. 
We have never had a failure of access.
  That is what he told me repeatedly, over and over again. He said the 
same thing to Democratic Senators he spoke with--that Iran was in 
compliance with the nuclear agreement and that IAEA inspectors were 
able to resolve any

[[Page S2538]]

areas. Where they contested and said ``We should have access,'' they 
were given access.
  I hope President Trump will actually read this agreement. I wish he 
had sat down and spent a few minutes with Inspector Amano before making 
this fateful decision today. I know it is probably good political 
theater for some to blast any international agreement or related effort 
that was taken up by President Obama, but let me remind my colleagues 
of other negotiations undertaken with troubling regimes that served our 
national security interest.
  It was President John Kennedy who negotiated with the Soviets during 
the Cuban missile crisis, bringing us back from the brink of nuclear 
war.
  It was President Richard Nixon who negotiated with the Chinese on 
normalizing relations, even while that Communist regime was providing 
weapons to the North Vietnamese who were fighting our soldiers.
  Of course, who can forget that it was President Ronald Reagan who 
negotiated with the Soviets while that Communist nation had thousands 
of nuclear warheads pointed at the United States of America? They were 
occupying Eastern Europe, and they were supporting troubling regimes 
around the world. Yet President Reagan sat down and negotiated with 
them.
  Let's recall how many on the right of the political spectrum savaged 
President Reagan for negotiating with the Soviets on nuclear arms 
reduction. Let me read an excerpt from the January 17, 1988, New York 
Times about the opposition President Ronald Reagan faced in negotiating 
an arms agreement with the Soviets--criticism eerily familiar to what 
we have been hearing today from President Trump. Here is what they said 
about President Reagan:

       Already, right-wing groups . . . have mounted a strong 
     campaign against the INF treaty. They mailed out close to 
     300,000 letters opposing it. They have circulated 5,000 
     cassette recordings of Gen. Bernard Rogers, former Supreme 
     Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 
     attacking it. And finally, they are preparing to run 
     newspaper ads this month savaging Reagan as a new Neville 
     Chamberlain, signing an accord with Hitler--

  Of his day--

     and gullibly predicting ``peace for our time.''

  The conservative National Review's May 22, 1987, edition had a cover 
titled ``Reagan's Suicide Pact.''
  While opposed by some at the time, I doubt few in this Chamber on 
either side of the aisle would look back today and say that President 
Reagan's negotiations with the Soviets and the eventual agreement 
weren't in the best interest of America's national security.
  So here we are today with President Trump plunging us and our allies 
into uncertainty when it comes to an Iranian nuclear weapon and the 
credibility of America's word around the world. It is not very good 
timing if we seriously hope to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula by 
putting the American signature and name on the line in a negotiation to 
stop the development of nuclear weapons in that area of the world.
  What will President Trump do if Iran restarts its nuclear weapon 
program? Is he prepared to face the prospects of another war in the 
Middle East--a war with nuclear weapons? Certainly we will have no 
inspectors there anymore if President Trump has his way, and that can 
only set us back and open the door to the possibility of a nuclear Iran 
in the future. Does that make America safer? Does that make the world 
safer? Of course not. Is this just about undoing what President Obama 
did, keeping some campaign promise, which, frankly, doesn't serve the 
best interest of peace in the world or our own national security.
  Mr. Trump and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who 
support this move and are unwilling to speak against it, the situation 
being created by walking away from the nuclear agreement with Iran is 
now in your hands, on your watch. I hope something good can come from 
this.
  By all accounts, the American people overwhelmingly oppose what 
President Trump did today. The American people know we live in a 
dangerous world. They have heard over and over again about the 
prospects of a nuclear attack from North Korea. The notion that Iran 
would now develop a nuclear weapon does not make America feel any 
safer, and by a margin of 2 to 1, they tell President Trump: What you 
announced today was wrong. It does not make us any safer.
  There have been many opportunities in this country to work together 
on a bipartisan basis on foreign policy. Historically, that was almost 
always the case--as it should be. Sadly, those days are behind us. 
Instead, now it is straight partisanship. If President Obama wanted it, 
President Trump happens to oppose it.

  Look at the decision on the Paris climate agreement. That was an 
agreement reached by every nation in the world, and President Trump 
stepped away from it, saying: When it comes to climate change, the 
United States does not want to engage in this global conversation.
  When it came to healthcare in the United States, President Trump 
said: I want to eliminate ObamaCare--eliminate the Affordable Care Act. 
Across the United States, we are now seeing dramatic increases in 
health insurance premiums because of President Trump's decision and the 
opposition by Members of Congress on the Republican side against the 
Affordable Care Act.
  Now we are walking into a new territory. It is not just climate 
change; it is not healthcare; it is the safety of this world. It is a 
question about whether another nation will join the nuclear club--a 
nation we have plenty of differences with.
  We had an agreement, a good one. It was brokered by a group of 
nations that were unlikely allies: China, Russia, Western European 
nations, and the United States. Of course, that is an unusual grouping, 
but they all agreed Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, and we moved 
forward with an agreement that was working until this President, just 2 
hours ago, came before the American people and said the United States 
is walking away from that agreement.
  Sadly, it is a reckless decision. It is a historic, tragic, and 
reckless decision, which runs the risk of allowing this country, Iran, 
to develop a nuclear weapon, threaten the region, and threaten the 
world. We live in a dangerous world, and we need a President who 
understands that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.