[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3536-3537]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             A NUCLEAR IRAN

  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I rise to discuss what many believe is 
the most dangerous threat to our national security, and that is a 
nuclear Iran.
  Over the past few weeks, there have been a lot of discussions about 
the Obama administration's ongoing negotiations with Iran and what the 
role of Congress should be. I believe the debate this past week in 
Congress over how to best address this issue has distracted us from 
what I believe are the two key objectives in our effort to prevent Iran 
from achieving nuclear weapons capability. First, Iran must be 
prevented from getting the bomb, and second, we in the Senate must 
decide the best way to guarantee that result.
  For the past 10 years, I have been working hard to find the most 
acceptable and best way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons 
capability. Note that word ``capability.''
  For me, it has long been not enough to just announce that we must not 
allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. I am determined that Iran must not 
get the technical capability to manufacture such a weapon because a 
nuclear weapons-capable Iran is as dangerous as a nuclear-armed Iran 
because it throws up a cloud of ambiguity about its formal intentions.
  There are many in the policy communities who find some mistaken sense 
of comfort from the intelligence agencies' current view that Iran has 
not yet made a formal decision to develop a nuclear weapon. This is a 
delusion. Iran's industrial-strength uranium enrichment enterprise has 
gone from 600 centrifuges 6 years ago when the international community 
first expressed alarm to 19,000 today. We know the Ayatollah is on a 
quest for 190,000 centrifuges as soon as international constraints are 
removed.
  Let's state the obvious: The Iranian pursuit of uranium enrichment is 
not being created to manufacture medical isotopes and reactor fuel for 
producing electricity; its purpose is to produce nuclear bombs.
  Throughout my many years of involvement on this issue--as cochair of 
the task force at the Bipartisan Policy Center along with former 
Senator Chuck Robb and a distinguished panel of experts and in the last 
4 years here in the Senate--I have called for using the full range of 
tools to prevent Iran from reaching its nuclear goal. These include 
negotiations coupled with ever-increasing sanctions pressure and a 
credible threat of the use of military force if the negotiations and 
sanctions fail to lead to Iran's commitment to cease its pursuit of 
nuclear weapons capability. This continues to be my view.
  I do believe in diplomacy. I would very much like to see effective 
negotiations take place, led by insightful diplomats, focused on the 
right results. I would like to see that lead to a settlement that 
brings security and confidence. But we have every reason to fear this 
is not now happening.
  I don't want to destroy the negotiations track, but I do want to 
refocus it with the firm backing it requires to achieve the goal we 
need to reach. I don't want to demand everything from the Iranians, but 
I do want to require enough to guarantee they give up on their nuclear 
weapons ambitions. I don't want to torpedo the administration's 
diplomatic efforts, but I do want to require that Congress have the 
final say on whether the results of negotiations are acceptable and 
achieve the goals of preventing Iran's nuclear weapons capability.
  For me and I trust for the Senate, this is our most important task of 
the moment--to force the President to accept a congressional role. He 
has said repeatedly that he will deny us that role when it comes to 
approving any agreement. We must not let that happen.
  The reason I did not sign the open letter to Iran is not because I 
disagreed with the goals of the letter. All Senate Republicans and, I 
believe, many Senate Democrats, are in agreement on the overall 
objective of avoiding a bad deal with Iran. But the strategy we need to 
accomplish this essential goal is now in question, and we are divided 
now in a way that makes this goal harder to achieve.
  There are two bills pending that would require the President to 
present any Iran deal to us for review and action, and this is the 
course I believe we should take. One, which I cosponsored, has been 
introduced by both Senators Kirk and Menendez--a bipartisan effort. The 
other, coauthored by Senators Corker and Menendez--also bipartisan--I 
also support. The latter bill, which would require Congress to approve 
any deal with Iran, is very close to achieving the support of 67 or 
more Senators needed to overturn President Obama's promised veto of any 
legislation on this topic.
  Lack of bipartisan consensus at this moment on this issue is likely 
to lead to a fatally flawed deal that destroys more than a decade of 
effort to bring Iran to cease its goal of nuclear weapons capability.
  We all know now that the Obama administration abandoned the core 
objectives at the very outset, even before these talks began. Four U.N. 
Security Council resolutions; frequent and constant demands coming from 
this Chamber; four Presidents--two Republicans and two Democrats--
saying a nuclear-capable Iran is unacceptable; the firm position of 
AIPAC and other friends of Israel--all stated the necessity that Iran 
give up and shut down all its uranium-enriching centrifuges. Yet this 
goal was jettisoned before the talks even started. The Obama 
administration spokesmen, including Secretary Kerry himself, have 
explained repeatedly that it was just too hard to achieve. We must be 
more realistic, we

[[Page 3537]]

are told. The Iranians, we are told, can never be expected to agree to 
the demands laid down years ago by the Security Council. That was then, 
they said. This is now. Everything has changed. We have to set that 
goal aside, and we have to reach some reasonable agreement with a 
reasonable process with a reasonable country. The word we need to 
question there is ``reasonable.''
  Madam President, it appears my time is running out, but I notice that 
no other Member is here to speak, so I ask unanimous consent to speak 
for just 3 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I thank the Chair.
  But even leaving that shocking capitulation aside, we can never 
expect that the Iranians would negotiate under those conditions. We can 
now focus on the key fatal flaw of this agreement. It has been 
simmering for months, but it is now boiling over onto the front pages 
of our national attention thanks to the presentation by the Prime 
Minister of Israel, and that is the sunset clause.
  We now see that even if Iran is constrained by this agreement and 
even if in the most unlikely of worlds Iran fully complies with the 
agreement, at the end of a decade or so, Iran will be fully liberated 
to pursue nuclear capabilities with no limitations or constraints 
whatsoever--a free hand, a blank check to go forward, an Iran that will 
have wealth, the technical expertise, industrial infrastructure, the 
will, and, if given a sunset provision, the international acquiescence 
to do whatever they like to pursue their goal without any ability of us 
to stop it. They can do whatever they like.
  Ten years--oh, that is a long time out. Ten years is tomorrow 
afternoon. It is a blink of the eye.
  Such a sunset clause makes this entire enterprise unacceptable. Any 
agreement that contains a sunset clause must be rejected, and any 
agreement with Iran that does not impose permanent restraints on their 
nuclear ambitions is no agreement at all. We in the Senate have it 
within our ability and mandate to guarantee that happens, but to do so, 
we need to reach consensus across the aisle. We need to work together 
as Republicans and Democrats for the future security of our Nation, and 
for that matter, all nations.
  There are a number of issues on which we don't agree. There are a 
number of things on which we have different thoughts about how to 
proceed. But this is an issue of such historic consequence and such 
potential harm that we must find a way to work together to ensure our 
ability to undo what looks like is coming our way. So I plead with and 
I urge my colleagues--all my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats--to 
rise above any political considerations and work together to ensure 
that this Senate can prevent Iran from getting the bomb. History and 
future generations and our children and our grandchildren will judge 
what we do here now, and may that judgment be the right judgment for 
not just the future of our Nation but for the future of the world.
  Madam President, with that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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