“So it’s very disappointing”, said Bob Corker, chairman of the powerful senate foreign relations committee.
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The main financial sanctions, which have severely hurt Iran’s economy since 2012 after they were tightened by the United States and European Union, are unlikely to be removed until next year, as nuclear inspectors must first confirm Iran is complying with the deal.
“This deal with an evil group of leaders in Iran is going to spell death down the road for masses of people if we don’t get it stopped. I look at the things that they need to do, the way it’s laid out, and I don’t think you could more perfectly lay it out”, Corker said. “You have 535 secretaries of state, you can’t deal with anybody”.
The Idaho senator says that anyone who believes the accord is a good deal “really joins the ranks of the most naive people on the face of the earth”.
Congress can pass a motion of disapproval, which President Barack Obama can veto.
The remarks preceded closed-door meetings in the House and the Senate with Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, both of whom were at the bargaining table with Iranians, as well as Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
On crutches from a cycling accident, Kerry entered the hearing room to cheers from the anti-war group Code Pink.
“Awesome job!” one of them shouted.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said it was the third Kerry briefing or hearing he’d heard in two days and that the message had been consistent.
Every member of the Foreign Relations Committee was present Thursday, including its two Republican presidential hopefuls – Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.
In a speech delivered after the nuclear deal was signed, Rouhani praised Iranian negotiators and said that Iran never intended to develop a nuclear weapon.
“The next president is under no legal or moral obligation to live up to it”.
“It could go away the day Obama leaves office”, Rubio said. But given Obama’s less than stellar track record for assurances, I think it’s fair to say that talk is especially cheap when it comes from this particular president.
But Adel al-Jubeir said Tehran’s support for regional “terrorism” remains a concern.
When all 15 members of the Security Council raised their collective hands to unanimously vote in favour of the recently-concluded nuclear agreement with Iran, they were also defying a cabal of right-wing conservative U.S. politicians who wanted the United Nations to defer its vote until the U.S. Congress makes its own decision on the pact.
Kerry took time to defend the so-called “side deal” struck by the worldwide Atomic Energy Agency with Iran, saying the IAEA protocols ensure the U.S. and its allies have essentially 24/7 insight to all declared civil uranium facilities as well as the 24-hour inspection notice for undeclared suspicious facilities.
Kerry also argues that if the deal is rejected, the diplomatic support the United States has garnered in recent years would evaporate.
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In New York, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, co-organiser of the Stop Iran Rally, claimed that there were 10,000 people in the crowd.
