(May 5, 2022 - Washington, DC) 

Last night, a majority of the Senate, including 16 Democrats, voted on an essential measure that opposes many of the details that have been leaked out from Vienna, over the course of the nuclear negotiations with Iran. This measure directly confronts some of the details of the negotiations that the Iranians have insisted upon, including the delisting of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), while “insisting” that any nuclear weapons agreement with Iran include provisions “addressing the full range of Iran’s destabilizing activities”, including “missiles, terrorism and sanctions evasion”.
 

The measure was attached to the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) which aims to counteract China’s economic influence on global affairs. This measure is germane to the bill because of the growing trade between the Islamic Republic of Iran and China.

 

This is extremely important because the Iranians have insisted upon their removal from the FTO, and that the nuclear negotiations not curtail their terrorist activity throughout the globe. Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, and members of the IRGC, have been responsible for the deaths of scores of Americans and other innocents. Included in this list is Hussein Daghan, who was responsible for giving the order in 1983 to bomb the US Marine barracks in Beirut Lebanon, murdering 241 US Marines. Also included on this list are Mohsen Rezaei and Ali Akbar Velayati, who were the masterminds behind the attack on the AMIA, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Of course, this list would have to include the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi. In 1988, he proceeded over the “Death Commissions”, the trials - which lasted only a few minutes - that sentenced approximately 5,000 Iranian dissidents to their deaths.

 

It also should be noted that more than 600 US servicemen came home from Iraq in body bags because of Iranian-made IEDs with Farsi imprints on them. This led to thousands of US servicemen returning home with amputated limbs.

 

It has been a fact that since 1984, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been designated by the United States as the lead state sponsor of terrorism.

 

The 16 democrats who voted for the measure included Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), Senator Richard Blumenthal, (D-CT), Senator Cory Booker, (D-NJ), Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), Senator Chris Coons, (D-DE), Senator Catherine Cortez Mastro, (D-NV), Senator Kristin Gillibrand, (D-NY), Senator Maggie Hassan, (D-NH), Senator Mark Kelly, (D-AZ), Senator Angus King, (I-ME), Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Senator Gary Peters, (D-MI), Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Senator Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), and Senator Ron-Wyden, (D-OR).

 

Those voting against the motion included Senators Sherrod Brown, (D-OH), Tom Carper, (D-DE), Mazio Hirono, (D-HI), Ed Markey, (D-MA), Jeff Merkley, (D-OR), Chris Murphy, (D-CT), Alex Padilla, (D-CA), Rand Paul, (R-KY), Jack Reed, (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brain Schatz, (D-HI) and Elizabeth Warren, (D-MA).

 

 

Says Sarah Stern, EMET Founder and President, “EMET wishes to express its deepest and most overwhelming gratitude to Senator James Lankford (R-OK) for his sponsorship of this critically important measure and his moral leadership on this issue. We would also like to thank the 61 of his colleagues in the U.S. Senate, including the 16 democrats who had the wisdom to understand and appreciate that these negotiations must include limits on Iran’s terrorist activated throughout the globe, their ballistic missile program and that we absolutely cannot delist the IRGC from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list. We know that if you look at every major terrorist activity throughout the globe, including attacks on our bases in Iraq, attacks on the Saudi oil fields, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas attacks from Gaza, Iran, and the IRGC is behind them. Since 2015, when the initial JCPOA was signed, and $150 billion in frozen assets was released to the Iranians, we have seen no curb in their terrorist activity throughout the globe. Why would we want to lift sanctions that would only enable, enrich and empower the IRGC and their various terror offshoots, and not go to the good people of Iran—two-thirds were born after the Khomeini revolution—and who resent and despise the dictatorship under which they are forced to live? A deal such as this one would only cement the power of this brutal regime for generations to come”.

 

EMET is a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy institute, which specializes in the Middle East.

 

--30--