Wendy Sherman: “Having been briefed at every stage of the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal, I was able to come to this floor just 2…”

“Having been briefed at every stage of the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal, I was able to come to this floor just 2 hours after it was published and be the first to speak in opposition to the Iran nuclear deal. Today, I rise to urge the President not to renounce that deal. The question is this: Do we want to liberate the Iranian Government or sanction the Iranian Government? If we renounce the deal, then the Iranian Government is free to remove the inspectors, to begin a program of building an unlimited number of centrifuges, and can request the return of the fissile material, several bombs' worth of fissile material which, under the deal, they had transferred to Russia and which Putin might choose to return. If we renounce the deal, we do nothing to give ourselves additional rights because, under the deal, we are free to sanction Iran in full proportion to its nonnuclear evil. The Iranian Government is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria and tens of thousands of deaths in Yemen. That alone justifies every sanction every Member of this body can come up with. We can stay in the deal and sanction Iran. ____________________”