Sen. Pat Toomey and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge urged the Obama administration on Monday to walk away from last year’s Iran deal, and keep sanctions on Tehran in place instead of lifting them as planned in the coming weeks.
Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Ridge wrote a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed taking issue with Secretary of State John Kerry’s Dec. 16 decision to certify that Iran is in full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the agreement hashed out between six major countries, led by the United States, and Iran and announced in July.
Kerry’s also assured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that suspension of sanctions related to Iran is “appropriate” and “vital to the national security of the United States.” But Toomey and Ridge deemed the Obama administration’s continued backing of the Iran deal a “delusion” in the face of what they said were “egregious” violations.
Lifting sanctions will effectively end the sanctions regime against Iran and jettison the only incentive for Tehran “to pretend” to comply with the agreement, argued Toomey and Ridge, who served in the George W. Bush administration.
The deal calls for the administration to remove the sanctions against Iran on “Implementation Day.” The date is still up in the air but Iran has suggested it could come as early as this month.
The two Republicans wrote the letter days after the White House reversed a decision to re-impose sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile tests in October and November, which defy United Nation resolutions separate from the nuclear deal struck in July.
“These launches were, at least by extension, violation of the JCPOA itself,” Toomey and Ridge argued. “Clearly the Iranians are actively developing the ability to deliver nuclear weapons great distances and equally clear is their contempt for the agreement.”
The administration planned to levy new sanctions on companies and individuals involved in Tehran’s ballistic-missile program Wednesday, but then changed course and did not follow through as expected.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday left open the possibility that the Obama administration could decided to impose penalties for the ballistic-missile testing, but offered no timeline for a decision.
Toomey and Ridge also argued that Iran violated other U.N. resolutions by sending weapons to Syrian President Bashar Assad in October. They also pointed to an International Atomic Energy Agency report on the previous military dimensions on Iran’s nuclear research and development that showed that Tehran had been working on nuclear weapons since at least 2009, undermining its argument that its nuclear activity was strictly for peaceful purposes.
The pair also cited a Nov. 19 letter to Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, in which the State Department acknowledged that Iran had not signed the JCPOA so it is not legally binding and reflects only “political commitments.”
