(WASHINGTON) — From calling it “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades” to calling President Donald Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran “out of step” with his stated objectives, several Republican senators have broken with the president over the agreement.
Core concerns from some of Trump’s closest Hill allies have revolved around the significant economic opportunity for Iran to rebuild with few concessions in return outlined in the short-term agreement Trump signed on Wednesday.
“I do have concerns that certain aspects of this deal are stepping in the wrong direction,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Fox News on Thursday.
“[Trump] deserves enormous credit for making Iran weaker than it’s been in decades, and we need to make sure that we don’t squander the leverage that we built across six years,” the Arkansas senator said.
Cotton’s comments are notable as he has been one of the Senate’s most hawkish voices on the war in Iran and has pushed the president to continue to attack the Iranian regime.
Others Republican senators had similar views of the deal, arguing that it gives Iran immediate relief on oil revenues and pledges to work to unfreeze $24 billion in Iranian assets and help create a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.
‘An exceptionally bad idea’
“History demonstrates that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea, and I think unfortunately the president is receiving some really bad advice on this deal,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said of the reconstruction fund. “I don’t want to see us send a penny to the ayatollah, and I hope that we don’t.”
“I support President Trump, and I think his leadership on Iran has been extraordinary. I believe he is getting poor advice, and I think sending billions of dollars to Iran is a mistake,” he added.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, of Mississippi, issued a bruising statement about the MOU, saying the proposal to create a $300 billion account to fund the rebuilding of Iran “would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison.”
The memorandum says the U.S. and Middle East partners would develop a $300 billion account for reconstruction and economic development, but Trump said the U.S. wouldn’t be contributing to it.
“We’re not putting up 10 cents,” Trump said Wednesday. “People can decide to do that, but that’s up to them.”
Wicker also said he opposes lifting sanctions on Iran, unfreezing Iranian assets or forcing Israel to stand down against Hezbollah.
“The Iranian regime has not renounced its ultimate goal — death to America, death to Israel. The regime wiill invest every penny it receives to further that aim,” Wicker said.
Additionally, while the agreement calls for the toll-free reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, senators said the future of the strait is unclear and could potentially open the door for Iran to impose fees for safe passage.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said whil. “some important things” have been accomplished by the campaign against Iran, “I’m afraid we will look back at this and see a missed opportunity to basically eliminate the threat going forward because there is nothing to stop the regime from beginning to block the Strait of Hormuz again basically at will.”
No demands of Iran on nuclear weapons
Senators also had concerns over the MOU not demanding that Iran destroy its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and that it doesn’t doesn’t provide a mechanism to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons in the future, which was one of Trump’s main objectives.
Instead the MOU says Iran reaffirms a longstanding commitment not to pursue a nuclear weapon and to negotiate what to do with the country’s nuclear stockpile.
“Since Day 1, I have supported President Trump’s efforts to end Iran’s 47-year threat to the United States and our partners. I am concerned that the memorandum of understanding negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury in ways that are completely out of step with the President’s goals,” Wicker said in his Thursday statement.
“The terms of the MOU that have been released start off at the outset with 10s of billions of dollars immediately being released to Iran before they make a single nuclear concession. I think that’s a mistake,” he said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., also expressed doubts about the agreement, saying, “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed.”
Graham: Upside outweighs the downside
Other Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham, voiced initial skepticism over the agreement but said he was cautiously optimistic that a possible future deal would ease his initial concerns.
While Graham said some of the criticism of the MOU is valid, without it “there’s no pathway to diplomacy to end the nuclear ambitions of Iran. What does that leave you with? War continuation of the status quo, so the upside of signing the MOU was greater, I think, than the downside.”
“Time will tell, but I’m glad we’re on the course on the path to diplomacy, and we’ll know in the coming weeks what kind of deal we will get.
Graham said he told Trump’s Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff “Pursue a good deal, but be ready to walk away.”
The administration has pushed back on some of those criticisms saying the sanction relief and asset access it has made to Iran is tied to “very concrete nuclear commitments” Iran has made, as well as saying that there will be further negotiations toward a final agreement, calling the memorandum a framework, not a final agreement.
Vice President JD Vance addressed skeptics during a White House press briefing on Thursday.
“People say the Iranians will never change their behavior. Well, maybe that’s true,” he said. “And if so, they don’t get any of the benefits of the bargain. But isn’t it worth trying? Isn’t it worth seeing whether this incredibly weakened position that the president of the United States has put the Iranians under, whether that motivates them to change their behavior, not just vis-a-vis the West, but vis-a-vis the Middle East.”
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