[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 109 (Thursday, June 27, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4607-S4608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                S. 1790

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on another note, I listened with great 
interest as the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 
the Senator from Rhode Island, spoke about Iran and the challenges we 
face there. I agree with some and maybe even most of what he had to 
say.
  The American people were appalled when, last week, Iran took down an 
unmanned American aircraft over international waters. As the Senator 
said, ordinarily, Iran operates by proxies or by third parties, whether 
it is the Shia militia in Iraq or Hezbollah or one of their other 
terrorist proxies like those operating in Yemen, the Houthis. But Iran 
escalated its attack against the United States by shooting an unmanned 
drone flying over international waters, so it was quite a shocking move 
from that standpoint, even from a nation as untethered as Iran.
  Iran has been engaged in a 30-year conflict with the United States, 
one that has resulted in the death of U.S. servicemembers in Iraq and 
elsewhere--victims of explosively formed penetrators and other training 
that the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, their Quds Force, their 
Special Operations force--the training they gave to terrorists 
operating in Iraq to kill Americans.
  Then there is the periodic harassment of American and other 
international vessels operating in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow 
strait through which a huge portion of the world's energy supplies 
flow. So this is, in some ways, an escalation of what has been a 30-
year conflict between Iran and the United States.
  Tehran has waged acts of aggression against the United States and our 
allies. It has exported terrorism around the globe. It is the No. 1 
state sponsor of international terrorism, and it has engaged in gross 
human rights violations against its own people.
  As I indicated, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is 
the loyal henchman responsible for leading these acts. It is a branch 
of Iran's Armed Forces which tries to squash democracy movements at 
home and abroad by pushing its extreme ideology beyond Iran's borders.
  The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wields vast power and influence 
and uses its capabilities to encourage turmoil and conflict and 
violence throughout the Middle East. It funds arms, training, and foot 
soldiers to the terrorist groups that spread their radical ideology.
  While the terrorist activities alone are enough to cause concern, the 
IRGC is also in control of Iran's ballistic missile program, which 
unfortunately has only accelerated under the previous administration's 
deeply flawed nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of 
Action, the JCPOA. Once

[[Page S4608]]

we saw the details of that deal in 2015, it quickly became clear that 
it was not much of a deal at all. If the goal is to prevent Iran from 
getting a nuclear weapon--well, it obviously failed in that goal.
  As the majority leader said at the time, it ``appears to fall well 
short of the goal we all thought was trying to be achieved, which was 
that Iran would not be a nuclear state.''
  Despite the restrictions it would impose, the deal would leave Iran 
with a vast nuclear program and allow it to continue to conduct 
research and development on advanced centrifuges and building 
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
  Perhaps worse, the nuclear deal would lift those restrictions in a 
decade. In other words, it was 2015 when the JCPOA was signed by the 
relevant parties. So by postponing Iran's ability to develop a nuclear 
weapon, we are already half of the way there almost. It is no wonder 
that then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an 
address to Congress in March of 2015 and said the JCPOA ``doesn't block 
Iran's path to the bomb; it paves Iran's path to the bomb.'' That 
certainly seems to be the case. We have seen Iran violate the nuclear 
deal and U.N. resolutions time after time, and it is clear that their 
resolve to create nuclear weapons remains their highest priority.
  Just a year ago, President Trump announced the United States would 
pull out of the nuclear deal, a decision I strongly supported. Even at 
the time Secretary Kerry, the Secretary of State, admitted that the 
tens of billions of dollars the United States released to go to Iran 
would be used to fund their terrorist activities, he supported it 
nonetheless. He supported it even though it paved the way for Iran to 
get a nuclear weapon 10 years after the JCPOA was signed.
  Since the Trump administration has withdrawn from the JCPOA, it has 
taken resolute action against Iran, including stronger sanctions on 
entities and individuals and the designation of the IRGC as a foreign 
terrorist organization, which it clearly is. Somehow, though, despite 
the unprovoked attacks, flagrant violations of international 
agreements, and human rights violations, some of our friends on the 
left and the mainstream media have grossly mischaracterized the 
situation and have somehow managed to point the finger at the Trump 
administration for starting the fight in the first place. They want to 
blame America, and they want to blame this administration.
  Let me be clear. Iran is the aggressor. Their history as the chief 
mischief-maker in the Middle East began long before President Trump 
took office, so don't lay this at his feet. From the Iran hostage 
crisis to their outright support of terrorist groups in the Middle 
East, to this latest strike at a U.S. aircraft, something they 
admitted--they said: We did it--their actions at every turn have 
demonstrated a desire not only to escalate the conflict with the United 
States and our interests and allies but to spread their violent 
extremism without regard for anyone else.
  I have to say it has been 74 years since a nuclear weapon was 
exploded during World War II, and I hope and pray there is never again 
a nuclear weapon exploded on our planet, but can you imagine Iran, the 
No. 1 state sponsor of international terrorism, getting a nuclear 
weapon? We can never ever allow that to happen.
  This last week marked the 23rd anniversary of a notable episode in 
Iran's sad history of terrorism. That was the 23rd anniversary of the 
Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. In 1996, a truck bomb was 
detonated adjacent to a building housing members of the U.S. Air 
Force's 4404th Wing, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel and a Saudi 
local and wounding 498 others.
  If Tehran expects to continue exporting terrorism and violence around 
the world without a response from the United States and our allies, 
they are sorely mistaken.
  If Iran can continue to escalate with no response from the United 
States or our allies, they are going to continue to escalate as much as 
they can, which I think is more dangerous than a proportional U.S. 
response to what happened in the Strait of Hormuz.
  The President has opted for hard-hitting sanctions, which I think are 
a good start. Those sanctions announced by the administration earlier 
this week represent an appropriate response to the Iranian escalation 
consistent with President Trump's maximum pressure strategy on Iran. 
These sanctions will deny the Supreme Leader, the Supreme Leader's 
office, and close affiliates access to resources they need to finance 
their rogue regime. There is no benefit--in the interest of peace--to 
applying anything less than maximum pressure on Iran to change their 
behavior. The tentacles of the IRGC run deep into their economy, and 
these sanctions will prevent them from amassing even greater power to 
develop sophisticated weapons.

  We have seen reports that the economic challenges they are 
encountering as a result of the sanctions already in place are making 
it harder for them to finance their terrorist operations through their 
proxy.
  The actions taken by Iran show that they are feeling the squeeze of 
these sanctions, and they know exactly what they need to do before they 
can get relief. As Secretary of State Pompeo said, ``When the Iranian 
regime decides to forgo violence and meet our diplomacy with diplomacy, 
it knows how to reach us.''
  I sincerely hope to see the day when the Iranian people can live 
without fear, when their government respects its own citizens and 
international allies and lives by international norms and finally 
decides to forgo its nuclear weapons. Until that day comes, I hope our 
allies will stand with us in confronting the tyrants in Iran and doing 
everything in our power to push back against the world's largest state 
sponsor of terror.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

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