Toomey calls for support of continued sanctions on Iran
In light of what he called Iran’s “egregiously bad behavior” following an agreement to curb its nuclear ambitions, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is pressuring the White House and Congressional Democrats to support continued sanctions on the United States’ longtime nemesis.
“We are rapidly approaching a point of no return in respects to Iran and its nuclear development program,” Toomey, R-Pa., told reporters on a conference call Tuesday.
Toomey’s call continued a media push on the issue that began Monday when an opinion piece co-authored by former Pennsylvania Gov. and former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge was published on philly.com.
If sanctions are lifted, Iran will gain immediate access to more than $100 billion and the only incentive for it to even pretend to comply with the agreement will be gone.
In that op-ed, Toomey and Ridge argued that lifting sanctions under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed to by the United States, Iran and several other nations last July would simply reward Iran for its ongoing rogue activities.
“If this delusion results in the imminent lifting of sanctions, Iran will gain immediate access to more than $100 billion; the sanctions regime will be effectively over; and the only incentive for Iran to even pretend to comply with the agreement will be gone,” they wrote.
To support their stance, Toomey and Ridge pointed to several examples of Iran’s actions, such as launching a long-range, nuclear-capable, precision-guided ballistic missile in October, and violating United Nation Security Council resolutions by sending weapons to Syria’s regime using Russian planes, receiving an air defense system from Russia and sending a military leader to Moscow.
The senator and former governor also pointed to a Dec. 2 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency that concluded Iran had worked on a nuclear weapons program through at least 2009 and not cooperated with inspections.
As he and Ridge did in their opinion piece, Toomey noted on Tuesday that Iran has not signed the nuclear agreement and its parliament has not ratified it. “To release all this money … to do that wouldn’t just be foolish it would be extremely dangerous,” Toomey said.
On Dec. 29, Secretary of State John Kerry said Iran had put tons of enriched uranium on ships bound for Russia as part of the nuclear agreement. Kerry called the move “one of the most significant steps Iran has taken toward fulfilling its commitments,” the AP reported.
Toomey, though, said he was not surprised by Iran taking “a few steps” under the deal. “That doesn’t comfort me very much,” he said.
Besides the nuclear agreement situation, Iran is also now in the midst of a political and diplomatic firestorm with Saudi Arabia, which angered Shiite-majority Iran by executing a prominent Shiite cleric Saturday.
Protesters in Iran ransacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran and diplomatic ties between the two countries have been cut. Other nations, such as Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates — all Sunni Muslim-led countries such as Saudi Arabia — have also downgraded their relationships with Iran.
Saudi Arabia “sees this (nuclear) agreement as a very dangerous threat to their security,” Toomey said, so it is reaching out to fellow Sunni nations for support. “This agreement, unfortunately, undermines what little stability there may have been” in the region, he said.