[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 55 (Tuesday, March 29, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1826-S1827]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Foreign Policy

  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, a lot of Americans are tracking day by 
day what is happening in Russia and Ukraine, as we watch the Russian 
Army continue to be able to roll its way through Ukraine and, city by 
city, pummel innocent people--so, literally, to shell homes, 
apartments, businesses; to level whole cities to the ground for the 
sake of Russia's aggression.
  This Congress and this body in particular, in the Senate, have spoken 
out often on this issue. I am grateful that the President has engaged 
to be able to apply sanctions, to be able to cut off purchases with 
Russia, to be able to slowly open up the weaponry that we are giving to 
the Ukrainians, as they continue to ask for more. They are looking for 
help. The Oklahomans whom I talked to want us to provide help.
  But it is ironic, and some people may not know, that while we are 
isolating Russia in every way that we possibly can, right now, this 
administration is working with the Russian representatives to be our 
spokesmen to Iran negotiating a revised nuclear deal with Iran. We are 
not doing face-to-face negotiations with Iran. We are working through 
the Russian representative to represent our beliefs to the Iranians.
  Now, if anyone in this room could say they trust the Russians to 
represent our values at the table with Iran, please, rise, because we 
don't and we shouldn't, and it makes absolutely no sense that a revised 
nuclear deal is

[[Page S1827]]

being done with Iran through the Russian negotiations while Russia is 
currently pummeling Ukraine. I wish I could tell you that is even the 
worst part of this deal.
  Iran has a couple of things that they need to be able to get to a 
nuclear weapon. The two things they need are time and money. They have 
the technology. They have the know-how. They have the facilities. They 
have the advanced centrifuges. They just need time and money. My 
frustration with the Iranian nuclear deal that was done under the Obama 
administration was that it gave them both time and money. It set a 10-
year window where they couldn't have nuclear material that could be 
usable for a nuclear weapon, but it allocated $100 billion in relief of 
sanctions to the Iranians--$100 billion to the Iranian regime.
  Now, I have no beef with the Iranian people. They are remarkable 
people, extremely well educated, but they live under the thumb of a 
horrible regime.
  What did the Iranian regime do with the $100 billion that they were 
given?
  Well, we saw the advance of the war in Yemen that happened as the 
Iranians were supplying the Houthis to be able to attack the Saudis and 
the Emiratis. We saw what happened in Lebanon with the support for 
Hezbollah to be able to attack Israel and to continue to destabilize. 
We saw what the Iranians did in Syria, supporting Bashar al-Assad and 
becoming his army in many areas across Syria, and that ruthless 
dictator is still there today because of Iranian support, because of 
the $100 billion that was given to Iran so they could prop up Assad and 
so he could stay in place. That is what happened with the $100 billion 
that Iran was given last time.
  Then, the Trump administration came in and took away that and imposed 
maximum pressure on the Iranians, walked away from the deal, and said: 
We are not going to give the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the 
world billions of dollars of access to capital; that seems like a 
terrible idea.
  And I can assure you, the people of Syria understood that was a 
terrible idea.
  But now, what? President Biden has reopened negotiations, as I 
mentioned before, by using Russia as our proxy to be able to negotiate 
this. Today, we had negotiators that were brought on by the Biden 
administration, who are former negotiators under the Obama 
administration, to renegotiate this deal, who have quit the negotiating 
team and who have said that this negotiation is going so badly that 
they will not be a part of it, and they walked away.

  We don't know everything that is in this deal, and I would say to 
you, quite frankly, I am not encouraged by what bit of rumors that I am 
hearing in this deal. I am hearing that this deal puts us back into the 
timetable that was done years ago under the Obama administration to 
give the 10-year window, that we are back into that same window that 
allows them to move to a nuclear weapon at an end-time period, that it 
doesn't challenge their terrorist activities, that it doesn't challenge 
their missile development.
  Literally, they are developing ballistic missiles designed to carry a 
nuclear warhead, and that is not part of this agreement, apparently, to 
restrict their development of a missile capable of carrying nuclear 
material, as long as they don't actually work to develop that nuclear 
material.
  It releases sanctions to them. So, again, they get billions of 
dollars. And in the negotiations we hear, at this point, it lifts 
sanctions on the entities in Iran that took away the property and the 
homes from Iranian Jews in 1979, which we have had sanctions on. We 
understand it takes the sanctions off of those responsible for the 
Beirut bombing in 1983 that killed 243 Americans, mostly marines.
  We also understand that it changes the status of Iran from being 
recognized as a state sponsor of terrorism--even though they are--and 
that there is a negotiation to take the Iranian Revolutionary Guard 
Corps off the list of a foreign terrorist organizations.
  Are you kidding me?
  This is not a good deal for the peace of the region. This does not 
prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. This continues to 
destabilize our relationships with our allies in the region, as Saudi 
Arabia and the Emiratis and the Israelis and everyone stare at the 
Americans and say: Why in the world would you make this deal that would 
allow Iran to become a nuclear power in the days ahead?
  Let me tell you, this is personal for many American families who lost 
a loved one in the battle in Iraq, when Iran engages the Iranian 
Revolutionary Guard to provide lethal equipment to the Iraqis so they 
could kill more Americans. Many Americans died in Iraq because of 
Iranian actions.
  On March 11, 2020, Technical Sergeant Roberts from Owasso, OK, was 
killed in Iraq when an Iran-backed militia group, equipped by Iranians, 
supported by the regime, arbitrarily launched rockets at American 
forces in Iraq, killing Technical Sergeant Roberts.
  Listen, this is personal for a lot of families. This is not some 
theoretical negotiation. This is a problem.
  Why we would say to the Russians, ``Negotiate on our behalf,'' while 
they are slaughtering Ukrainians and we are sanctioning those same 
Russians. Makes no sense. But a deal that lifts the sanctions on the 
Iranian Revolutionary Guard, on those that killed Americans in 1983 in 
Beirut, to give access to missile technology and to look away from 
their terrorist activities with Hezbollah and Hamas and in Yemen and in 
multiple other places in the world is not a deal Americans should make.
  Mr. President, walk away from this. There is a reason that your own 
staff is walking out of the conversation--because you are headed the 
wrong way.