On the recordNovember 30, 2023
Mr. Chair, this bill already contains behavior-based termination criteria for the sanctions described. Our sanctions on Iran should not disappear on an arbitrary date. Our sanctions need to remain in place until Iran stops threatening the United States, as already described in the bill. Iran has been a state sponsor of terrorism for over 40 years under, I might add, the same terrorist administration in Iran. If we put a 5- year sunset on this bill, Iran and its terrorist proxies will think they can just wait us out. After October 7, it became clear that we need to take every possible measure available to deter Iran and its proxies. The best way to project American strength is to make it absolutely clear that our sanctions will remain in place until Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States. Therefore, I oppose this amendment to add an arbitrary sunset, and I reserve the balance of my time.
