U.S. Senators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and James Risch (R-Idaho) have introduced new legislation to the Senate to ensure more congressional oversight on the ongoing negotiations with the Iranian regime over its nuclear ambitions.
The bill would put any final deal with the Iranian regime under congressional review, meaning that Congress has the power to disapprove any agreement. If the President were to not send the final agreement for congressional review or Congress rejects the agreement, then any sanctions that were lifted under the agreement would be reinstated.
A provision also sets out the plan that if the Iranian regime were to cheat on any deal reached and agreed upon by Congress, it would face sanctions once again. The bill proposes that any word of the Iranian regime cheating on the deal would be investigated by the Director of National Intelligence. If it were to be discovered that Iran did in fact cheat, then sanctions would be re-imposed automatically.
Additionally, after the negations recently being extended for four months, the proposed bill would ban any further extensions in talks.
Speaking on the Senate floor, the Senators argued for more congressional oversight on negotiations. Senator Rubio made the point that Iran has already achieved many of its goals during the current talks “They want to be able to retain — or achieve an internationally recognized right to enrich. Check. They want the capability to enrich and reprocess in the future and keep as much of that in place as possible. They’ve already gotten that–check. They want to continue to develop their long-range rockets and missile capabilities so that one day they can be in that position where, when we negotiate with them in the future on anything else, they’re untouchable because they can launch a nuclear attack against the United States, and certainly against our allies. They continue to do that. Check.”
Senator McCain joined in, saying that the American people need to understand what is going on regarding Iran, “Shouldn’t we understand better, shouldn’t the American people and the world understand better, what we’re dealing with here, a country with leaders who are dedicated to the extinction of everything we stand for and believe in? So, therefore, wouldn’t that impact our calculations as to their sincerity about a nuclear weapons program?”
Senator Graham spoke of the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions, and the importance of an agreement to stop the regime’s plans for nuclear enrichment, “Stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions through the P5+1 is the most important foreign policy decision in generations…the Iranians are pursuing a nuclear weapon, not peaceful nuclear power. The last thing the world needs is an agreement with Iran that allows them to maintain their nuclear breakout capability.”
