On the recordJuly 13, 2016
tomorrow will mark 1 year since the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, and Iran reached an agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining or developing a nuclear weapon. This afternoon, I intend to review where we are today 1 year after the deal--also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. I am grateful a number of my colleagues will come to the floor today as well, or are submitting statements for the Record, reviewing where we are 1 year later. As I said 1 year ago, roughly--in September--when I ultimately decided, after long and thorough and detailed consideration, to support the agreement, those of us determined to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran have a real, enduring, and ongoing responsibility to undertake consistent and clear-eyed assessments of how this agreement fares and not just over the course of its first year but over the many years to come. In short, in my assessment so far, this deal has done what it intended to do. Because of aggressive enforcement of the terms of the agreement, the JCPOA has cut off Iran's most likely short-term uranium and plutonium pathways to building a nuclear weapon. The time it would take for Iran to break out, to assemble enough fissile material for one nuclear weapon has extended significantly from just 2 to 3 months to well over a year. The international community, in turn, has upheld its commitments under the deal, providing Iran with relief from nuclear-related sanctions.…
