We Can Still Stop the Iran Deal
TED CRUZ : McConnell and Boehner should seize this opportunity to demonstrate leadership and make it happen.
The specter of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran is the single greatest threat facing our nation, and if President Barack Obama’s catastrophic nuclear deal with the mullahs goes forward, there will be nothing to stop them from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Astonishingly, we do not even know how bad the deal is because the Administration has not released all of the information relating to side deals with Iran as they are obligated to do under the terms of Corker-Cardin, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act that Congress passed and the President signed into law.
Today I sent Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner a letter that lays out the legal authority they possess as leaders in both Houses of Congress to actually stop this deal.
If we believe what we say about this deal—that it is a profound threat to our national security, to the survival of our friend and ally the nation of Israel and potentially to the lives of millions of Americans—then we should act like it. No show votes that are destined to lose; instead, the leadership should exercise their legal authority to actually prevent more than $100 billion from going to the Ayatollah Khamenei.
The approach I recommend entails a three-step process, and McConnell and Boehner should seize this opportunity to demonstrate leadership and make it happen.
First, both leaders should formally declare that President Obama has not submitted the agreement to Congress as required by Corker-Cardin. The terms of Corker-Cardin are clear: The president may not suspend any sanctions against Iran until he submits the entire agreement to Congress and gives Congress an opportunity to review it. The president has failed to submit widely reported but undisclosed side deals between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency that bear directly on the inspections regime at issue in the Iran agreement. Therefore, the president has not submitted a complete agreement as Corker-Cardin requires, and the 60-day clock for congressional review did not begin to run. As a result, critically, federal law prohibits the Obama administration from lifting sanctions under the agreement.
