Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) is in Israel this week meeting with Israeli government and military officials.
While conferring with Prime Minister Banjamin Netanyahu and other high level government and military officials about various matters, but in particular about the Nuclear Iran Deal, he took the time to discuss with the JewishPress.com what’s next for opponents of the Nuclear Iran Deal.
On a day of gloom for most opponents of the Nuclear Iran Deal, Cotton was surprisingly contained. Clearly, for this Senator, the Deal isn’t over no matter how many “announced” votes in support.
“Until we have the actual vote, they don’t have the votes,” Cotton said, pointing out that “the coalition opposed to the deal is broad and bipartisan, while those in favor of the deal is the narrow and partisan base of the president.”
There are several scenarios in which certain members of Congress might still decide to change their votes, especially if more information is released about, for example, thus far secretive aspects of the agreement, dealing with Iran’s possible military dimensions of their nuclear program.
A cursory review of recent statements in support of the deal issued by congressional members reveals one curious fact: nearly every one expresses extensive concerns about the deal. Pushing on any of those weak pressure points with additional evidence of wrongdoing or evasiveness by Iran could produce very different results when the vote actually takes place later this month.
And, as Cotton pointed out, there are other options for Congress to further protect the world from the radical Islamic Revolutionary regime. One is by reauthorizing the Iran sanctions act, which will expire next year. Another is to deal aggressively with Tehran’s active involvement in regional and global terrorism.
When the JewishPress.com asked the Senator whether Iran’s recent threat to consider any increased imposition of sanctions, even for acts of terrorism, as a breach of the Iran Deal is a threat it is holding over America, one given to it by the Deal, Cotton agreed.
“This deal has a weak inspections regime, all kinds of hurdles against enforcement, and yet if we try to hold Iran even to what it promised, Iran can walk away, pocketing all the goodies it gained by agreeing to the deal in the first place,” Cotton said.
As for regular citizens who support this deal, Cotton said, it is imperative that people opposed to the deal succeed in helping those who think they are in favor of it to “recognize it is a false choice” to say that “it is this deal or war.”
In addition to simply reverting to ’60’s chanting about loving peace and hating war, Cotton sees at least the congressional supporters as falling into the category of “kicking the can down the road, rather than confronting our mortal enemies now.” The Senator said all that will bring is “confrontation with our enemy later, when it is even stronger.”
Cotton, of course, was the senator who discovered the existence of the secret so-called “side deals” between the Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, while meeting with the agency in Vienna on July 17.
The Arkansas Senator and his colleague Sen. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) disclosed the existence of those side deals and called on the administration to disclose them immediately.
In a press release after discovering the side deals, the Senators blasted the administration for agreeing to engage in negotiations while permitting – and keeping secret from the American public – secret agreements regarding essential features of the agreement framework.
In failing to secure the disclosure of these secret side deals, the Obama administration is asking Congress and the American people to trust, but not verify. What we cannot do is trust the terror-sponsoring, anti-American, outlaw regime that governs Iran and that has been deceiving the world on its nuclear weapons work for years. Congress’s evaluation of this deal must be based on hard facts and full information. That we are only now discovering that parts of this dangerous agreement are being kept secret begs the question of what other elements may also be secret and entirely free from public scrutiny.
During Cotton’s questioning of Secretary of State Kerry in the course of a hearing on the Nuclear Iran Deal in Congress, Kerry admitted that our negotiators accepted that the American public would be kept in the dark about the agreement.