(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) US Secretary of State John Kerry faced heavy scrutiny on Thursday as he testified on the Iran deal in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where lawmakers - mostly Republican - insisted the Obama Administration had succumbed to "deception" by Tehran.
"Anyone who believes this is a good deal really joins the ranks of the most naive people on the face of the earth," Idaho Senator James Risch told the room, where Kerry sat alongside Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
"You guys have been bamboozled," he said.
New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez insisted that the Administration "fails to appreciate Iran's history of deception." Kerry strongly defended the deal he spent weeks negotiating in Vienna, capping off two years' worth of "intensive" talks on the issue.
"Let me underscore, the alternative to the deal that we have reached is not... a, quote, 'better deal,' some sort of unicorn arrangement involving Iran's complete capitulation. That is a fantasy, plain and simple, and our intelligence community will tell you that. Every single department of our intelligence community will reinforce that to you," he stressed.
"The choice we face is between an agreement that will ensure Iran's nuclear program is limited, rigorously scrutinized and wholly peaceful or no deal at all," Kerry affirmed. "That's the choice." "If Iran fails to comply, we will know it, and we will know it quickly, and we will be able to respond accordingly by reinstituting sanctions all the way up to the most draconian options that we have today. None of them are off the table at any point in time," he added.
"So many of the measures that are in this agreement are there for - not just for 10 years, not just for 15 years, not just for 20 years, not just for 25 years of which there are measures for each of those periods of time, but they are for life forever as long as Iran is within the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty)," he said.
"By the way, North Korea pulled out of the NPT. Iran has not pulled out of the NPT," he noted.
"If the US Congress moves to unilaterally reject what was agreed to in
Vienna... we will have squandered the best chance we have to solve this
problem through peaceful means," Kerry said.
He emphasized that America's friends are also on board with the deal.
"We're working very closely with the Gulf states. Just today, in Saudi Arabia... the foreign minister said that Iran's nuclear deal appears to have all the provisions necessary to curtail Iran's ability to obtain a nuclear weapon," he said.
"The Emiratis are supportive. The foreign minister of Iran's going to be in the Emirates this weekend," he added.
Ami Ayalon, the former head of Israel's domestic spy agency, Shin
Bet, "praised the Vienna agreement as a useful measure to curb the Iranian
threat," Kerry noted. "I don't think he's naive." For his part, Lew assured lawmakers that the US "will aggressively target any attempts by Iran to finance Hezbollah, or use funds gained from sanctions relief to support militant proxies, including by enhancing our cooperation with Israel, and our partners in the Gulf." He explained: "Iran's USD 100 billion in restricted foreign reserves, which many fear will be directed for nefarious purposes, constitute the country's long-term savings, and not the budgetary allowance. We estimate that after sanctions relief, Iran will only be able to freely access around half of these reserves, or about USD 50 billion, and that's because over USD 20 billion is committed to projects with China, where it cannot be spent; and tens of billions in additional funds are non-performing loans to Iran's energy and banking sector." Lew said Tehran "can't simply spend the usable resources as they will likely to be needed to meet international payment obligations, such as financing for imports and external debt. Moreover, President (Hassan) Rouhani was elected on a platform of economic revitalization, and faces a political imperative to meet those unfulfilled promises. He faces over half a trillion dollars in pressing investment requirements and government obligations." The financial restrictions can always snap-back into place if the US has any suspicions about Iran's nuclear program, Kerry affirmed.
"We always have the ability to put our sanctions back in place, and given our
position in the world - and that's not going to change in the next 10, 15 years
economically, we're still the most powerful economy in the world - we will
have an ability to have an impact on their transactions and ability to do business," he said. (end) ys.hb
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