[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 514-515]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH IRAN

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, some months ago, in the midst of debate on 
the nuclear agreement with Iran, I came to the Senate floor to remind 
my colleagues of some recent history involving other negotiations 
undertaken with troubling regimes that turned out to serve our national 
security interests.
  I reminded my Republican colleagues that John Kennedy negotiated with 
the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis, saving us from 
nuclear war. I reminded them that Richard Nixon negotiated with the 
Chinese on normalizing relations, even while that Communist regime in 
China was providing weapons to the North Vietnamese, who were using 
them against American soldiers. I, of course, reminded them that Ronald 
Reagan negotiated with the Soviets while the Communist nation had 
thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at the United States, was 
occupying Eastern Europe, and was supporting troubling regimes around 
the world.
  Let us also recall how many on the right in the political spectrum 
savaged then President Reagan for negotiating with the Soviets on 
nuclear arms. Let me read an excerpt from the January 17, 1988, New 
York Times about the opposition--eerily familiar to what we have been 
hearing in the debate on the Iran nuclear agreement--Reagan faced in 
negotiating an arms agreement with the Soviets:

       Already, right-wing groups . . . have mounted a strong 
     campaign against the INF treaty. They have mailed out close 
     to 300,000 letters opposing it. They have circulated 5,000 
     cassette recordings of Gen. Bernard Rogers, former Supreme 
     Commander of NATO, 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 and 
     gullibly predicting ``peace for our time.''

  Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will said in a 1987 
Newsweek column of negotiating arms agreements with the Soviets, 
``Reagan has dramatically advanced the moral and psychological 
disarmament of the West by emphatically siding with those . . . who 
emphasize the role of ideology, and hence the radical differentness and 
dangerousness of the Soviet threat.''
  The conservative National Review's May 22, 1987, edition had the 
following cover entitled ``Reagan's Suicide Pact'' concerning Reagan's 
negotiation with the Soviets. While opposed by some at the time, few in 
this Chamber would look back today and say that these negotiations were 
a mistake or that the agreements that were reached between Reagan and 
the Soviets didn't actually serve long-term American national security 
interests.
  So we are here today with the fulfillment of the first stage of a 
historic agreement between world powers and Iran that has effectively 
eliminated that country's ability to build a nuclear weapon--a weapon 
that could have threatened our close allies and the world.
  Only a few months after this agreement was reached, Iran has met its 
critical commitments. It destroyed its only source of weapons-grade 
plutonium by literally pouring concrete into the heart of the reactor. 
It shipped 98

[[Page 515]]

percent of its low-enriched uranium, at least 25,000 pounds--some 12 
tons--of this low-enriched uranium out of the country. Recall that 
thanks to the interim agreement, Iran had already shipped out all of 
its more dangerous highly enriched uranium. It dismantled and removed 
two-thirds of its centrifuges--thousands of its centrifuges--and it has 
allowed international inspectors unprecedented access to its nuclear 
facilities and supply chain.
  A simple question to the critics of the Iran nuclear agreement: 
Today, is Iran closer or further away from the development of a nuclear 
weapon? The answer is that it is further away. There is no other 
reasonable conclusion.
  Do you remember the speeches given by Prime Minister Netanyahu and 
many of the critics of this agreement? They were telling us that Iran 
was weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon. Now by consensus we 
believe they are at least 1 year away from developing a nuclear weapon 
if they completely walked away from this agreement. Without a nuclear 
weapon, Iran is not the same kind of threat to the Middle East, Israel, 
or to the world.
  All of what I said has been verified by international inspectors. Do 
you recall Ronald Reagan reminding us to trust but verify? We verified. 
The agreement gives inspectors continued access in perpetuity. In a few 
months, Iran has gone from a breakout time of a nuclear weapon from a 
month or 2 to at least 1 year. Quite simply, under Barack Obama's Iran 
nuclear weapon agreement, their program has finally been brought to a 
halt without firing a shot--something no previous administration had 
been able to accomplish. That such a difficult task was accomplished is 
a testament to the tireless work of our former colleague and current 
Secretary of State John Kerry and his team. This Senator thinks of all 
those who worked so hard on this for so many months to achieve it.
  Tough diplomacy has also brought home a number of Americans who were 
unjustly held in Iran. These Americans had not even left Iranian 
airspace before many of the Republicans running for President unleashed 
another wave of worn-out rhetoric criticizing the President's effort 
that led to the release of these Americans being held prisoner. They 
also failed to offer a substantive alternative approach. Let me remind 
the naysayers that it was Ronald Reagan who traded weapons to Iran for 
seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon--
not a handful of nonviolent sanctions violators but weapons to what was 
then our arch enemy who had only recently held more than 60 American 
diplomats as hostages for 444 days. By the time the sales were 
discovered, more than 1,500 missiles had been shipped by the Reagan 
administration to Iran and only 3 hostages had been released. They in 
turn were replaced with three more, sadly, in what then-Secretary of 
State George Shultz called ``a hostage bazaar.''
  I have met the families of those held hostage, and I can't say what I 
would do in each case if I were President in those heartbreaking 
situations. But I do know it is far easier for these Republican 
Presidential candidates and critics of this administration to arm-chair 
the Secretary of State or President than to actually make the tough 
decisions that brought these men and women back home to the United 
States.
  While I applaud the nuclear deal and the release of the detained 
Americans, I am under no illusions about the Iranian regime. I believe 
there is a faction in Iran that wants Iran to integrate into the global 
community and reject Iranian belligerence in the region. Certainly a 
large number of the Iranian people feel that way. But there are deeply 
troubling hardliners in Iran as well. They continue to support some of 
the most troubling groups in the region, from Hezbollah, to Hamas, to 
the Assad regime. They continue to imprison their own people for 
wanting more freedoms. They threaten Israel, our closest ally in the 
Middle East, and the region's broader security.
  I hope that recent events mark the beginning of a gradual change away 
from these hardline policies and that we can continue to work with 
wiser voices on shared challenges such as Afghanistan and Syria. Until 
then, the administration has wisely maintained sanctions on Iran for 
its support of these terrorist groups and human rights violations.
  I also strongly support the most recent sanctions related to Iran's 
ballistic missile testing announced by the Obama regime. The world will 
have ongoing, intensive inspection of Iran's remaining nuclear 
infrastructure to make sure there is no cheating on the agreement.
  It is always easy to threaten force or simply say that troubling 
regimes must bow to a rhetorical demand. It is another thing to 
actually use diplomacy to reach these goals. Let's not forget the price 
in lives, treasure, and regional upheaval that the Iraq war caused us--
prices we continue to pay to this day. To end Iran's nuclear weapons 
program without another devastating war is remarkable and worth the 
risk. We should follow the words of President Kennedy: ``Let us never 
negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.''

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