McCarthy condemns Obama for licensing aircraft sales to Iran

“Only weeks after Iran was found to have violated the nuclear agreement, the Obama administration is yet again giving the Ayatollah more concessions,” McCarthy said in response to the decision.

House Republicans voted to ban these sales last week, but that was a symbolic gesture given the certainty that Obama would veto the bill if it ever reached his desk. There were reports that the administration was considering the licensing in order to “fortify” the Iran nuclear deal before President-elect Trump takes office, a complaint Republicans echoed in condemning the sale.

“It is clear that the Obama Administration is going to rush through as many provisions as possible pertaining to the Iran deal prior to President Obama’s last day in office,” Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., the lead sponsor the aircraft sales ban, said in response to Tuesday’s news. “Even the president’s own State Department has declared Iran ‘the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,’ and the Treasury Department has designated Iran as ‘a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern.’ The steps taken today by the Treasury Department endanger our men and women in uniform as well as those of our allies.”

The State Department insisted they were simply fulfilling American obligations under the terms of the deal, which is formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

“This particular license that we’re talking about today isn’t new,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “There’s no Machiavellian intent here to push, in any way, outside the bounds of our normal commitments and obligations here in the final months of the administration. What we are committed to doing is meeting our obligations in a consistent, forthright manner and this license [announced] today is one of those obligations.”

President Obama’s team defended the sale of aircraft that would be used for “exclusively civil end uses,” in response to House legislation banning the transactions. “We fully expect that, if these measures became law, our closest allies would view this bill as a violation of our JCPOA commitments and Iran would take the issue to the Joint Commission,” a White House statement of administration policy said. “Our allies have steadfastly supported us when Iran has brought concerns to the Joint Commission, but they would be unable to do so if this legislation were enacted.”

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., who has long opposed the Iran deal and discouraged Western companies from doing business with the Iranian government due to the regime’s sponsorship of terrorism, maintained that the deal does not require the aircraft sales to go through.

“We should not be surprised to see Iran’s latest military demonstrations feature Boeing 747s,” Roskam told the Washington Free Beacon. “This is not hypothetical … We know the military has requisitioned Boeing planes from Iran Air in the past. Boeing is literally enhancing the military capabilities of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”

McCarthy cited the licensing — and news that Iran recently stockpiled more of a particular nuclear material than is permissible under the nuclear deal — as a justification for considering withdrawal from the deal. “The president’s executive agreement with Iran is on unstable ground, and actions like this underscore the need for the upcoming Trump administration to review all options when it comes to this failed deal,” he said.

After emphasizing that “there’s no final push” or “concerted effort” by the Obama administration to limit Trump’s options, Kirby suggested that the next president’s hands are tied already.

“Without speaking to what the next administration might or might not do, it’s important to remember that this isn’t a bilateral agreement between the United States and Iran,” Kirby said. “It is a multilateral international agreement and that character of it, the truly international scope of it, I think, needs to be taken into account.”