May 14, 2015 - H.R. 1191 – Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act: NO. The Congress is correct to distrust the President in his negotiations with Iran, but this measure misses the point.
Iran is a notoriously untrustworthy rogue state and whatever agreement the President makes with it is meaningless. In both word and deed, its regime has made unmistakably clear that it intends to acquire nuclear weapons and once acquired, to use them. The only solution short of war is the collapse of the regime from within. Over the last several years, the Iranian opposition has grown dramatically for two reasons: a growing perception among its people that the regime is a pariah in the international community and that the resulting economic sanctions make its overthrow imperative.
President Obama has done incalculable damage to the Iranian opposition by engaging the regime diplomatically, legitimizing it just when it had lost legitimacy in the eyes of its own people. Worse, by promising relief from economic sanctions, he has removed the most compelling reason the Iranian opposition had to justify the regime’s overthrow.
I fear that this bill gives tacit approval to negotiations that Congress ought instead to vigorously condemn and unambiguously repudiate.
