Portman blasts Senate vote on Iran nuclear deal

From U.S. Sen. Rob Portman
R-Ohio

I'm extremely disappointed that 42 senators voted to block the Senate from disapproving the Iran agreement.

This is one of the most important foreign policy decisions of this decade. This is a bad deal that fails to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and allows Iran to increase its support of terrorism. I will continue to stand by Israel and other allies in the region. We should vote again next week and I call on my colleagues to stop the filibuster.

I rise today in opposition to this agreement and I do so because I believe that it is bad for our country and bad for the world.

There are very few votes we take in the United States Senate that have such a profound effect on our national security and the kind of world our kids and grandkids are going to inherit as the vote on this nuclear deal.

Over the past couple months, I have taken the time to read the agreement carefully, I’ve attended the classified briefings, I’ve listened to my colleagues, I’ve talked to a lot experts on both sides of the issue.

I’ve also listened to my constituents back home in Ohio. They’ve looked at this agreement too and they understand what’s at stake…My calls and letters and emails are overwhelmingly opposed.

Through the process, I measured the agreement not based on some abstract concept that I might have. I actually based it on the actual objectives and criteria that were set out by the international community, the United Nations, the United States of America, our government. I looked at it based on the red lines that we had drawn, and one of my great concerns about this agreement is that those red lines have not been honored.

The broad goal, of course, the biggest red line laid out by Congress, the Obama administration, and the United Nations Security Council, was very clear. Iran must stop and dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

Remember, that when Congress, on a bipartisan basis, enacted crippling sanctions on Iran, it was not just to bring Iran to the table, which was a result, but to convince them to abandon their nuclear weapons program.

I supported tougher sanctions to give leverage to the Obama administration even though curiously, they didn’t want that leverage. They resisted Congress increasing those sanctions.

Despite this resistance, serious sanctions were enacted, and Iran did come to the table. I hoped that with firm U.S. leadership, leading from the front, not from behind, we’d be able to bring the international community along…unfortunately, after reviewing the terms of the agreement, it is explicitly clear that these red lines – these objectives, these criteria we set out – have not been met.

We now have an obligation to reject this deal and begin to restore the consensus both at home and abroad that the Iranian government must be isolated economically and diplomatically, until it agrees to the longstanding terms on which the United States and the international community have long insisted. Some will say that’s fine but it is impossible. I disagree and respectfully quote President Obama: no agreement is better than a bad agreement…his is a bad agreement.

Among the many serious flaws of this deal is the fact that Iran can continue research and development on more advanced centrifuges and can resume enrichment in 15 years, providing at best, only temporary relief. Inspections, one of the most important safeguards we have, are not ‘anytime, anywhere’ as Administration officials suggested.

Under the deal, Iran can delay the inspection of suspected nuclear sites for up to 24 days…if the Iranians cheat, as they have in the past, we would have to employ a convoluted process to convince the international community to restore sanctions, a process we cannot rely on.

According to some estimates, Iran could receive up to $150 billion in sanctions relief early in the agreement, with or without sustained compliance, which will encourage the Iranians to cause trouble, to further support terrorist groups they sponsor. As National Security Advisor Susan Rice acknowledged something pretty plain. She said, ‘Iran is sending money to these groups now while they’re under sanctions and they’ll have more money to do it when sanctions are relieved.’

There was a speech written that was never given. It was meant to be given on November 22, 1963. It was the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. And he said in that speech about America’s role – he said, ‘Our generation, our nation, by destiny, rather than choice, are the watch guards on the walls of world freedom.’ It’s who we are. We’ve got to be tough in these negotiations and stand tall. Other countries look to us to be tall.

This body must not sign off on an agreement that fails to honor our red-lines, that strengthens Iran’s destabilizing influence in the region, and does nothing to address the behavior that threatens our allies and our legitimate national security interests here in this country.

We should reject this agreement with Iran and tighten the sanctions on a bipartisan basis. The President should then use the leverage that only America possesses to negotiate an international agreement that does meet the longstanding goals of the United Nations, of the international community, of the United States of America, of this Congress and the President himself.

We can’t afford to get this wrong, folks. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to get this right. This is about what kind of world they are going to inherit.