The recent nuclear agreement reached between Iran, the United States and five other world powers regarding the future of Iran’s nuclear programs isn’t what it was initially supposed to be, says U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI).
“Even worse, the deal gives Iran relief from an international arms embargo, something that was not even on the table when talks began in 2013,” said the Congressman, who is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade.
The U.S. Congress still has to approve the accord between Iran, the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, though President Obama may veto any resolution of disapproval.
This is an edited excerpt of Rep. Ribble’s discussion on Thursday with The Ripon Advance on the deal.
Ripon Advance: What is your opinion on President Obama’s nuclear weapons agreement with Iran?
Ribble: I have several concerns. First, right out of the box, there was never any negotiated deal to release our American prisoners held in Iran’s jails and this should have been a lead off issue in the negotiations. So if Iran wants to be part of a civilized world, then it cannot act like a rouge state. So for me, I started off sour on the deal because of this.
Secondly, regarding the agreement itself, anything that continues to allow Iran to move forward with nuclearization is a deal killer for me. If Americans ask themselves, am I going to be safer with a nuclear Iran or with a non-nuclear Iran, virtually every American would say a non-nuclear Iran.
Subsequent to that, you get into the actual nuts and bolts of the deal. Originally, President Obama said … our inspections would have to be anywhere, any time. But we’ve ended up a far stretch from that. The deal builds in up to 24 days before we have access. In that amount of time, the Iranians can move around anything they want to move around. This deal is not anywhere, any time so why should we support it?
Absent verification, there should be no deal at all. Anywhere, any time is what the President of the United States and Secretary Kerry told us it would be and that’s what it should be.
Ripon Advance: Do the provisions of the accord go far enough in terms of its likelihood of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapons program?
Ribble: I do think it moves toward that direction, however it doesn’t remove the capability of Iran actually being able to do so. In fact, part of the deal does not remove sanctions on Iran to buy weapons that could be nuclearized. For instance, Iran could buy ICBMs from Russia and in less than 90 days … be able to turn an ICBM into a nuclear warhead.
This is going to be a tough sell for Congress.
Ripon Advance: How will this agreement impact America’s national security?
Ribble: The president actually said something interesting today; he wants to expand military aid to the Iraelis. Why in the world would we need to do that if the negotiated deal we just made with Iran is going to make them safer? The fact is we didn’t. And if they are destabilized, then America is destabilized. There’s no way the administration can make the argument that we’re going to be made safer by this agreement from what I can see.
Ripon Advance: Congressman, do you have any other comments that you’d like to make on this issue?
Ribble: The final comment I’ll
make is that not only did this agreement allow
Iran to continue their nuclear ambitions by removing economic
sanctions, we’ve also increased their economic viability and allowed
them to have nuclear weapons. Iran has won both and this does not strike me as
a deal that is particularly strong for the United States or for the West.