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Let me begin with the issue on everyone’s minds: Iran. Republicans and Democrats agree that we cannot and will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. That is why President Obama worked with members of both parties in Congress to put in place unprecedented U.S. sanctions on the Iranian government. President Obama also recognized that convincing other countries to impose similar sanctions would increase the pressure on Iran – which is why the Administration pushed hard to get the UN to impose new sanctions against Iran. And we succeeded. In June 2010, the UN adopted one of the toughest sanctions regimes in the history of the organization – sanctions that all UN Member States are required to enforce. The European Union and other likeminded countries followed suit with their own additional sanctions. It was this combination of unilateral and multilateral pressure that helped bring Iran to the negotiating table.

Because I know it is of interest to this committee, let me speak briefly about the framework of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that our negotiators reached earlier this month. This deal is not predicated on trusting Iran. To the contrary, the Administration entered these negotiations clear-eyed about the nature of the Iranian regime – a regime that has been a leading state sponsor of terrorism, a chronic human rights violator, and patron of abusive regimes. We have never lost sight of that reality. Indeed, that is precisely why we grounded the framework on rigorous verification measures that will allow us to base our conclusions about Iran’s nuclear program on transparent, and comprehensive inspections. It is based on facts, not faith. On proof, not goodwill.

And this framework follows the model of deals that great American leaders – like Presidents Kennedy and Reagan – made with dangerous Soviet regimes during the Cold War. Those regimes had the capacity to threaten our very existence with nuclear annihilation, and were working relentlessly to harm our interests. Yet American leaders carefully weighed the potential risks against potential benefits, entered into tough negotiations, and crafted deals worth making.  We have done the same with Iran.

This deal meets our core objectives – strictly limiting Iran’s program to ensure it is exclusively peaceful, and cutting off every pathway that Iran could take to developing enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. That means no enrichment paths through Natanz or Fordow. No plutonium path through Arak. And effectively no potential covert path.

Iran will be subject to one of the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regimes ever negotiated. The shortest commitments last a decade, yet many of its commitments are permanent – with no sunset clauses. Iran will decommission over 10,000 enrichment centrifuges, around two-thirds of the stock it possesses. Today, Iran has an enriched uranium stockpile of around 12,000 kilograms, enough to make ten nuclear bombs. Under this deal, Iran will get rid of about 98 percent of this stockpile, retaining only 300 kilograms. As centrifuges are dismantled and facilities repurposed, Iran’s breakout time – the time it could take to build a nuclear bomb – will go from a few months to at least one year.

In exchange, Iran will not receive substantial sanctions relief until it verifiably completes all of its major nuclear-related steps and the breakout time has been increased to at least a year. And if Iran violates the deal, we will snap sanctions back into place.

Just as the pressure from UN sanctions helped bring Iran to the negotiating table, we expect the UN Security Council to play an important role in an eventual deal. Indeed, we expect most of the core UN sanctions to remain in force for some time after a deal is finalized. Specifically, Iran will continue to be subject to UN restrictions on the nuclear technology it can import. It will also be subject to restrictions related to conventional arms and ballistic missiles for a considerable period of time. And just as our domestic sanctions can easily be put back into place if Iran is caught cheating, we are insisting on procedures to ensure that the UN sanctions snap back too. We are also drafting provisions to ensure that any snapback will be triggered based on our own determination, without giving Russia or China the power to block it. 

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