from iranian activities in the gulf that there is an openness there. the king was here last week, had a chance to meet with the president. perhaps there is more of an opportunity for candid dialogue and we have had in the past. >> we have to break away from this speech by hillary clinton at brookings to take you live to the u.s. senate floor. they are about to start there debate sunday iran nuclear agreement. this is live coverage. the earth. today, open the hearts of our lawmakers to what you have done, are doing, and will do for those who love you. as they remember how you led our nation in the past, increase

their optimism regarding what the future can bring. help them to remember that even when wrong seems very strong, you continue to rule and that your sovereignty will prevail. give us this day our daily bread, not only of physical renewal but of spiritual sustenance, lest our souls starve in the far country of neglect or indulgence. we pray in your great name amen.

the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: this afternoon the senate will engage in a debate of immense importance to our country. i again ask every senator to reflect upon its gravity. at its heart, this is about more than just the short-term

prospects of one agreement or the long-term legacy of one president or the narrow interests of one political party. wrapped within our larger questions about the prospects for stability in a region, the potential for safety in a nation, and the continued role of our country in a dangerous and uncertain world. we can't escape these questions. their answers carry the potential to touch every american and future generations. the american people deserve our deliberate and considered responses. they deserve a senate that can rise to the moment. tired talking points won't get us there. a filibuster won't do it either. but here's what will.

respecting each other will get us there. serious discussion will get us there. a debate worthy of the moment will get us there. and so that's what i'm calling for again today. i ask every senator to join me at their desk this afternoon so that we might listen to colleagues as well as debate colleagues. a serious debate and an open vote on this issue is the very least our country should expect. that's the least we should be able to give them. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader.

mr. reid: yesterday my friend, the chairman of the foreign relations committee, senator corker of tennessee, said -- and i quote -- "i recognize and have all along that it takes 60 senators to advance legislation and get a final vote on a bill or resolution." close quote. no equivocation. no dancing around the issue. the chairman of the foreign relations committee established what we've known all along. it takes 60 votes. his counterpart, cardin of maryland, also agrees. 60 votes, that was always the intervention. one senator -- always the intention. one senator he hearings voted "no" on the resolution because he didn't want it to be 60 votes. everyone else voted for that. 47 republican senators sent a letter to the ayatollah

explaining to them how the senate works. in that letter, all 47 republican letters acknowledged it takes three-fifths votes to get things done here in the senate. so, mr. president, that is over and done with. the resolution before us would take 60 votes to pass. but from senator corker, the direct quote i read, is in black and white. there aren't any words of mine. those are his words. that's a direct quote from the chairman of the foreign relations committee. that's what we have. republicans have clearly conceded it takes 60 votes to advance a resolution of disapproval. mr. president, filibusters stop debate. we're willing to have all the debate the republicans want. two hours, two days, whatever they want. it has to be completed by next thursday, that's the only dead

lienl that i can see -- deadline that i can see. the good news is that we have a solution, we democrats of course on this side of the aisle. we continue to propose following ample debate the senate then proceed directly to a vote on final passage. of course it would have a 60-vote threshold, as the chairman of the committee said yesterday. no need for any other procedural votes. we would just do that. there is no need for the republican leader to continue wasting the senate's time. and it's precious. look what we have this week. basically one more legislative day this week. next week we have two days -- monday and tuesday -- which are long-term celebration of the entire congress of a jewish holiday. we have also the deadline of the

17th. this matter dealing with iran has to be completed as far as senate floor action. we have staring us in the face at the end of the month the government funding will be gone. we have to do something about that. and we know, we've heard all the threats of republican senators who, we're not going to fund the government unless something is done with planned parenthood. those things take time. we've got to get to that. every day we waste here on the floor trying to figure out what the republicans want to do is time that we should be spending on how we're going to fund the government. there's no question the republican leader now has a very real and important decision to make. we have a lot of work to do this month. we can't afford to waste time with unnecessary procedural hurdles. we also have some things we have to be involved in here. it's going to slow up what we do. we've got the president of china

coming toward the end of the month. we have the pope coming. they expect as many as 500,000 people here on both sides of the capitol in the short time he's here on capitol hill. we have so many things to do. we need to have a path forward. i mentioned already, to keep the federal government from l shutting down because of a lack of funding. we need to figure out how to keep our highway trust fund solvent, which it is not now. we need to do something about cybersecurity. we need to consider important tax extender regulations as well as how to prevent a default on the debt limit. all will converge about the same time. senate democrats, senate republicans have very real deadlines we must meet. we can't meet it because of a procedure in the senate unless the republican leader allows us to have some time on the floor. what we don't have time is to waste on republican-contrived procedural fights that have no basis or fact in realty.

it is time for republicans to abandon their plans to slow down on the nuclear review act and move on to other matters. mr. president, would you announce the business of the day? the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of h.j. res. 61, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 170, house joint resolution 61, amending the internal revenue code of 198 # to exempt employees under tricare and so forth. the presiding officer: l under the previous order, the time until 12:30 p.m. will be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. mr. reid: mr. president, i would ask that until 12:30 today that any time dealing with quorums be equally divided. if we're in a quorum call, it should be equally divided on

both sides. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered.

mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. the senator is recognized. mrs. boxer: thank you. i would ask just a moment if i might through the chair if senator corker would like to take his five minutes first. i'm happy to allow that. mr. corker: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: i appreciate the

tremendous courtesy of my friend from california. i'll actually take one minute. thank you. that is just to say that this afternoon we're going to have a very sober and dignified debate about a foreign policy issue of huge consequence to our nation, certainly to the world. and i want to thank senator mcconnell and senator reid for setting up a format like that. i know that many of my friends on the other side of the aisle have been concerned about amendments that may cause this to be a different type of debate. i would like to point out the leader yesterday filled the tree. i just want people to know that. and i want to thank senator cardin and senator menendez beforehand for the way we've all been able to work through a lot of issues that have come up. and what i hope doesn't happen today is somehow or another we begin referring back to

incidents of trying to turn this into some type of partisan debate. we worked through all those. things happened all along the way. we worked through those. we ended up with the ability as a congress on an executive agreement, which we all know was meant to be implemented without any congressional involvement whatsoever, going straight to the u.n. security council, we all worked together to figure out a way to have this debate and then vote on the substance of this legislation. so i want to thank my friends on both sides of the aisle. it passed overwhelmingly 98-1. i think actually you were absent but i know supported it on that day. and i look forward to a very substantive, a very substantive debate taking place on this most important issue. later today i'll have longer and more formal comments to make about the substance of what was

agreed to by the administration and other countries involved in the process. i'm looking forward to this. i want to say again to my friends on the other side of the aisle, i think that we've set this up in a manner to be a dignified, sober debate about one of the most important foreign policy issues that will come before us. thankfully it's coming before us because we all forced it to come before us to have this debate and to be able to weigh in. so with that, i yield the floor and thank very much the senator from california for her courtesy. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: mr. president, i want to thank my chairman of the foreign relations, senator corker, for his courtesy. we don't agree on this particular matter, but there are a lot of matters when it comes to foreign policy we do agree on, and i do agree that this should be a very straightforward debate. either you're for this agreement or you're not. and i think the fact that

congress is voting on it is good. i did support that in the committee. that calls for regular order as far as the way we treat this very important vote. and i am very proud to stand here today as the longest serving member sitting on this foreign relations committee today. out of all the members, i have been there the longest. when i got there, i did not have these gray hairs. i'm not blaming any of the topics that came before us for these gray hairs. however, we have had some tough debates, and this certainly is one of them. so i know my friend has a lot to do, and i just want to say i was pleased to yield to him because i think he has set the right tone for this debate. colleagues, this is a vote we're going to long remember. a vote on an arms control agreement that came about for only one reason, and that reason is our president and his team,

senator john kerry, former senator john kerry, secretary of state now, wendy sherman, the chief negotiator, that was part of the team, and many others worked tirelessly against the most vitriolic opposition. the president stood firm. and i want to say to him today thank you, mr. president. in that race for president that you won, you were very clear that you were going to reach out your hand and see if we could avoid another war in the middle east, and i hope and pray that this senate will give us and the world this opportunity. as the president has said, a military option is always on the table. it's in our constitution that

the president can respond to a threat. so nothing in this agreement takes a military response off the table, but it does say diplomacy should have a chance to work, and this diplomacy includes much of the world, mr. president, and that's why it's so remarkable. i also want to give special thanks to two former secretaries of state -- colin powell, a republican, and hillary clinton, a democrat -- for weighing in on the side of diplomacy. now, as senators, we deal with thousands of issues in the course of our careers, but we will long remember those, long remember those that actually changed the course of history. those kind of votes are votes of conscience, and they're votes about which we must look into

our hearts, deeply into our hearts and into our minds, and we have to look at the facts. the facts are stubborn things. no matter what 30-second ad there is, no matter what newspaper ad there is, there are facts that are obvious, and i want to go through those facts. i have them here on this chart. one, this agreement cuts off the uranium pathway to a bomb. it does it by reducing iran's stockpile of enriched uranium by 98% and severely restricts its ability to enrich uranium. that's number one. second, it cuts off plutonium pathway to a bomb. they do that by dismantling iran's iraq reactor core and

replacing it with a core that cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium. that's the second part of the agreement. three, it includes the most intrusive inspections regime ever negotiated. let me repeat that. the deal includes the most intrusive inspections regime ever negotiated. this means 24/7 monitoring of iran's declared sites as well as inspections to the entire nuclear supply chain from its uranium mines and mills to its conversion facility to its centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities. and this is critical. it provides the international atomic energy agency -- you will hear it referred to as the iaea -- with the mechanism to require that iran grant access to its suspicious sites.

no other international agreement has ever done this before. so when you hear colleagues say well, iran has 24 days, you know, to hide things, all the experts will tell you you can hide a computer but you can't hide nuclear material. it has a half-life of thousands and thousands and thousands of years. but no other international agreement, not even the agreements we have with the iaea say that the iaea has a deadline where access has to be granted to suspicious sites. next, it requires the iranians to disclose their past nuclear activities before they can receive any sanctions relief. let me say that again. the iranians have to disclose their path to nuclear activities before they can receive any sanctions relief.

and lastly, if iran cheats, the united states and our allies will be able to snap back multilateral sanctions. there is a process there that gives us a lot of power to do that. now, because of all of this -- keep this up here, walker. because of all of this, more than 100 nations support this deal, including many of our closest allies like the united kingdom, germany, australia, france, japan and canada. 100 nations. and that is why 29 of the nation's top scientists, including six nobel laureates called the deal, and i quote, innovative and stringent and even say it can serve as a -- quote -- guidepost for future agreements. 100 nations, 29 of our nation's

top scientists. it is also why 60 bipartisan national security leaders supported, including leaders like madeleine albright, thomas pickering, ryan crocker. you know those names, you know those people. they have integrity. they have intelligence. they have experience. they were appointed by republicans and democrats alike. they point out that there are no viable alternatives to this agreement, and they are right. now, anyone -- and you're going to hear this from our republican friends. anyone who says we should go back to the embargoing table. you will -- to the bargaining table. you will hear this over and over again. just go back to the bargaining table. anyone who says that after 20 months of negotiation and huge support in the world is either engaging in fantasy or they truly want to sink this deal.

so if you hear somebody say oh, just go back to the table, just forget the support of the 100 nations, just go back, renegotiate this deal. let me tell you they are either engaging in fantasy or they want to sink this deal. there is a hard, cold truth here. if we walk away, there will be no agreement. let's be clear. and if that's your position, why don't you say it? but don't say go back to the negotiating table, no problem. if we walk away, there will be no agreement. america will be isolating itself and undermining its role as a global leader on arms control, and that is why more than 100 former u.s. ambassadors say that without this deal -- quote -- the risks of the security of the u.s. and our friends and allies would be far greater.

let me say that again. 100 former u.s. ambassadors from both parties say -- quote -- the risks to the security of the united states and our friends and allies would be far greater than if we do the deal. we know right now that iran has enough nuclear material to build ten nuclear weapons, so who are you kidding when you say the world will be safer if this agreement falls and iran is left to continue the dangerous course it began way back in 1984. we passed sanctions. we did it right here. i spoke on that. i said we've got to keep our eye on iran. we don't trust them. and so they came to the table. opposing this agreement means walking away, walking away from

the very strategy we embrace when we place sanctions on iran. and it means walking away from our best friends, our allies and our trading partners. now, when you probe the opponents of this bill and you say whoa, if you go back to the table, you're going to lose 100 nations, many of them our best friends, you know what they say? oh, we can just sanction those friends. we can just sanction those allies. we can just sanction those trading partners. can you imagine going after our best friends? is that a winning strategy? that's another example of the opponents dreaming or scheming, dreaming of a successful go-it-alone strategy or scheming for another war in the middle east. those options, go it alone or a war, those are self-inflicted wounds we can ill afford.

let's put up the statement by phillip hammond, the united kingdom foreign secretary. this is what he says. and in a meeting with the various ambassadors of the countries who cut this deal, the same thing was said, but let's say it the way he did. this is the united kingdom foreign secretary. quote -- "if the united states were to walk away from this deal, international unity would disintegrate, the hard-liners in iran would be strengthened, and we would lose the most effective path to stop iran from developing a nuclear weapon." unquote. philip hammond, the u.k. foreign secretary. so again, look at what he's saying. he's saying if we walk away, the hard-liners in iran would be strengthened, they would win. so i ask opponents of this deal

why do you want to stand with the hard-liners in iran? because you are standing with the hard-liners in iran who shout death to america, death to israel. you are standing with them. they want to kill the deal. now, i am under no illusions that this agreement solvessal our problems with iran, and i am under no illusions that this agreement will make iran suddenly some positive player on the world stage that we can cozy up to. no, no. that is why this agreement is not based on trust. as hillary clinton said today, it's based on distrust and verification. she is right. this agreement is also based on the most stringent inspections regime ever, ever negotiated.

iran is a bad and a dangerous actor. i don't think there's any disagreement on that. that is why its nonnuclear activities will remain subjected to tough sanctions. but here's the question, the ultimate question that each of us must ask ourselves -- would we rather have a bad and dangerous actor with a nuclear bomb or a bad and dangerous actor without a nuclear bomb? my kids would say that's a no-brainer. the answer is obvious. we don't want iran with a nuclear bomb, and that is why we need this deal. if iran cheats, it will be in front of the whole world, and i will be among the first to consider any and all options. now, i began by saying this is one of the most important votes

we will ever cast in our lifetimes. i am reminded of another one -- my vote against the iraq war. it was lonely then. only 23 of us. but you have to look at the situation. some of the leading voices against this deal were the very same people who brought us the iraq war. remember paul wolfowitz saying the iraqis would -- quote -- "greet us as liberators"? remember dick cheney, who is out there now saying vote "no" on this deal. it's terrible. remember what he said as he drew us into iraq? there was, quote, he said "no doubt that saddam hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." remember when he said the whole war would be -- quote -- "weeks rather than months"? i remember that after ten years of war.

remember bill crystal saying we would -- quote -- "be vindicated when we discovered the weapons of mass destruction." and remember some of our colleagues who are here today pushed hard for the iraq war and said it would be great for america and great for israel. well, they were wrong then and they are wrong now. look, it's no secret that the prime minister of our great ally israel is on the other side of this argument. but we must also remember that prime minister benjamin netanyahu was a cheerleader for the iraq war, and he said in 2002 -- quote -- "if you take out saddam's regime, i guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." unquote. prime minister netanyahu argued for the iraq war, saying --

quote -- "i guarantee you it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." positive reverberations? instead devastating consequences. more than 4,000 of our brave american men and women killed. 32,000 wounded. and we know -- we know that a lot of the baathists joined disies. isis. and the baathists were loyal to saddam. now they're guarding isis. if we're completely honest and we really ask the question who won the war in iraq, the answer comes back: iran. iran. they have never had more influence in modern times on iraq than they have today.

that is why as a stalwart support of israel, i strongly support this deal. i am the proud author of the last two u.s.-israel security bills passed by congress called the u.s. security enhancement cooperation act of 2012 and the u.s.-israel strategic partnership act of 2014. and i believe as the author of those two bills that president obama signed, i believe this deal makes the united states safer and it makes israel safer and it makes the entire world safer. i said that prime minister netanyahu is very clearly opposed, but let's look at some of the top military experts in israel, experts who understand

what is paramount to israel security. let's look at ami ilan. he's a former head of shin bet, israel's internal security service. this is what he says -- "when it comes to iran's nuclear capability, this deal is the best option." now this isn't just some citizen in the street. this is the former head of shin bet, israelis' internal security service saying this. then there is amram mitnah, retired major general in the israeli defense forces, former member of the knesset, former member of haifah. this is what he said -- quote -- "for israel's sake and all the people in the middle east, we must not miss this opportunity." then efraim malessi.

he said without an agreement, iran will be free to act as it wishes. unquote. let me repeat that. this is the former director of the masssad. he said without an agreement, iran will be free to act as it wishes. these leaders that i've quoted from israel are some of the most knowledgeable in the world when it comes to israel security. and they believe this deal will make israel safer. it doesn't change the fact the israeli government opposes this. i agree with that. i understand that. but there is a split in israel and it is worth commenting on it. with their expertise and knowledge their endorsements should be taken seriously. and also the endorsements from our current and former colleagues in congress should be taken seriously.

11 jewish former members have weighed in saying -- quote -- "we champion the u.s.-israel alliance and all strongly support this agreement because it will enhance the security of the united states, the state of israel, and the entire world." i thank them for weighing in. this is one of those debates that's very hard regardless of your position because it's emotional, it's difficult. and yet they weighed in, as did the israeli security experts. blee me, the pressure on -- believe me, the pressure on them not to talk was enormous. this deal also has the support of some of the most knowledgeable and respected foreign policy lawmakers who etch served in congress. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to insert in the record two opinion pieces, one written by senators carl levin and john warner, and another by senator sam nunn and richard lugar.

the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: thank you so much, mr. president. two democrats, two republicans, leaders all, respected, effective. these former colleagues understand the risks of military action, and they're right. and they know this deal doesn't rule out the use of military force. the united states can strike if we need to. but we must first try diplomacy. since when are we afraid of that? we can try diplomacy because we're the most powerful nation on earth. we should try diplomacy and if it fails, we always have all options on the table, as our president has said, as i have said, as everyone has said. you know, it's striking to me that we don't have one republican for this.

i'm kind of amazed all the focus was on the democrats. really? and a few are opposing and a vast majority are for it. i'm just surprised that a richard lugar couldn't sway anybody, that a colin powell couldn't sway anybody, that a john warner couldn't sway anybody. and also the religious communities across the united states apparently aren't swaying anybody. it is telling that 340 u.s. rabbis fear that if the united states rejects the deal -- and i quote -- "the outcome will be the collapse of the international sanctions regime and iranian race for nuclear weapons and isolation of israel and the united states from international partners. 340 rabbis. there's also support for more than 53 christian leaders and the u.s. conference of catholic

bishops who referred to pope francis' hope for a deal that he says is a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world. i don't know why we haven't been able to really see bipartisan support in the senate. i'm puzzled by it. i'm saddened by it. it appears to me this is political. president obama wants it. he worked hard for it. they don't like it. that's what i think. i may be wrong, but it's hard for me to imagine with all these solid republicans in favor of this deal outside of the senate and the house, we just can't seem to have bipartisanship. these faith leaders, they're speaking on behalf of their synagogues, on behalf of their congregations.

and their faithful. they're speaking for so many americans, so many americans who have prayed on this issue and have come to the conclusion that this is the best deal for our nation. believe me, it's easier to say "no." you can always say i don't like line 4, page 2. a deal by its very nature is not perfect. is not. that's why it's a deal. otherwise it would be a fiat. i want this. okay. we make deals. we do it here all the time. but somehow this deal, because it isn't perfect, and everyone agrees it isn't perfect, somehow we can't seem to get bipartisanship. and it breaks my heart, frankly. colleagues, this is really a major moment for us. as individuals and for our nation. we will be judged on this vote, and we should be judged on this

vote. we should be judged on votes that could lead to another war in the middle east. at least one of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle admitted his truthful position. i respect that. he said -- quote -- "we can set iran's nuclear facilities back to day zero using military force ." he's voting "no" on this agreement and anyone else who joins him should know this. to walk away means iran can continue its nuclear program at will. this is not acceptable, and it means a path to war. let us not tip toe around this. this option, the option to no agreement isn't go back to the bargaining table, because everyone has said very clearly all our allies, they're not going back to the bargaining table. so we have no agreement.

and to walk away means the international sanctions collapsed. and if we think, we ourselves can now turn to our best friends and allies like the united kingdom and say, well, if you don't go along with us, we're not trading with you anymore, that's just not going to happen. so to walk away means iran will continue its nuclear program because there won't be a deal. to walk away means we will find ourselves isolated from some of our best allies in the world. remember, 100 nations support this deal. 100 nations, including the united kingdom, france, germany, australia, japan, and canada. to walk away, i believe, means war, and the other side will say that's just a scare tactic. it's not a scare tactic. if you can't go back to the negotiating table because nobody's going back there with you, you can go back.

you'll be there by yourself. iran walks away. they continue with their program. and we're not going to stand for that. we've all said that. so to walk away, in my view, means war. because when we walk away, there is no deal. iran keeps its nuclear program, and that cannot be allowed to happen. you know, another one of our colleagues that we serve with -- and i have a lot of respect for and a good friendship with -- once said bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb iran. you remember that. he's going to vote "no" on this deal. and that's going to move us more toward his reality. wars are easy to start and they're hard to end. wars are a stain on the human race, and we should do everything in our power to avoid war. now avoiding war does not mean

giving up strength because, again, a military response to iran is always on the table. and if iran violates the deal, the whole world will know it. it will be right out there, and the whole world will stand with us in taking action. diplomacy is the first resort. war is the last resort. i have voted for war; okay. i said let's go after bin laden. i voted for that war. easy to start, hard to end. so, my colleagues, i'll say it again, this is our chance and this is our choice. history will judge us. with this one vote, we have the chance to seize an historic opportunity to once again make america a shining example of leadership. and with this vote, we have a chance of, a real chance to make this world safer right now for

our children and our grandchildren. thank you very much, mr. president. i would yield the floor. mr. corker: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: i want to thank the senator from california for her service on the foreign service committee and her impassioned comments. i obviously am a very different place policy wise than she is. i want to point out that there is bipartisanship here. there is bipartisan disapproval. and while i know the senator from california knows a great deal about foreign policy issues, as the longest-serving member on the committee, the two that have spent more time than anyone understanding the nature of this deal, the impact it's going to have on the region, more time because there's been more meetings with them has been, are the two democrats, the ranking member today and the former ranking member, that both oppose this.

so there is bipartisanship. i don't view this as political at all. i think we have been able to establish a strong bipartisan bill to vote on this. we have got strong bipartisanship in both bodies, i might say, in the house and senate in opposing this, and i hope that what we'll be able to do is not -- not sort of cast aspersions about people's motives here but to really debate this on the substance. with that, if i could -- and i will be glad to take your question. without objection, i'd like to yield the remainder of republican time here in morning business in this manner. 20 minutes to senator cruz who i think is going to be here momentarily, 20 minutes to senator mccain, 15 minutes to senator vitter and five minutes to senator kirk. and i don't want to burn up a lot of our time, but if there is no objection? the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing none, so ordered.

mr. corker: but i would be glad to take your question. mrs. boxer: thank you, senator. this is not a lot. what i was trying to point out is exactly that, that you do have a few democrats, is it four? i think four democrats that have come down, but we don't have one republican on the other side. that was the only point i was making. so you're right. you have bipartisanship. but i'm saying where are the republicans supporting this. it just seems odd to me, and it does feel political from your side just to me, because when you have colin powell who is for the agreement and you have john warner and you have other republicans, former ambassadors and military people, it just seems odd. i was making that point. but you're right. you do have bipartisan support on your side. i'm lamenting the fact we don't have it on ours because it just doesn't feel right to me, having gone through these debates in the past. mr. corker: i think in

closing -- i'm going to leave the floor so i'm not burning up any more of our time, but i think there are very, very legitimate concerns about the fact that we began this to dismantle iran's nuclear program, to end their program per the president, and by approval of this deal, what we actually are doing is industrializing -- approving the industrialization of iran's nuclear program, the greatest state sponsor of terror in the world, and i think that obviously creates a lot of issues and concerns, and that's why i think you see so many people disapproving this agreement. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cruz: mr. president, let's start out with a little simple math. 58-42 is not a victory for the side with 42. even in the case of obamacare -- a truly disastrous piece of legislation -- which was forced through the congress on purely

partisan lines, that legislation received a majority. this isn't even close. because not only has the republican caucus held firm and unanimously rejected this catastrophic deal, but we have also been joined by colleagues from across the aisle who are not blinded bipartisan politics and understand the threat that is posed by president obama's proposed nuclear deal with iran. i want to take a moment to acknowledge them, as they are among those who know best how bad this deal is. first, senator chuck schumer of new york. who has been a longtime advocate for the state of israel. it's no secret that senator schumer and i have had our disagreements on a great many issues, but i've been proud to stand with him for israel and against this iranian nuclear deal.

and i was proud to stand with senator schumer when congress voted unanimously on the legislation i introduced to ban a known terrorist, amidu bodoulidi, who barpd in the 197 -- participated in the 1979 iran hostage taking, from becoming iran's ambassador to the united nations. senator bob men endez of -- bob menendez of new jersey has likewise come out against this catastrophic deal. senator men endez and i have -- menendez and i have worked together on a wide range of deals, including a $5 million justice award for the capture or kill of the hamas terrorist who murdered israeli-american teenager naftali frankel and his two teenage friends. senator ben cardin of maryland, the ranking member of the foreign relations committee, whose name is on the legislation through which we are scheduled

to vote this week. certainly senator cardin knows as much about this deal as anyone and his opposition should make all senators, particularly democratic senators, take note. and senator joe manchin of west virginia, my colleague on the senate armed services committee, who understands the threats to national security posed by this iranian nuclear deal. i was honored to work with senator manchin and have his support for the resolution i introduced condemning hamas' use of human shields during israel's action in gaza last summer, a disgusting terrorist tactic that was aided and abetted by hamas' iranian sponsors. democrats should take note that the ranking member on the foreign relations committee, the former ranking member on the foreign relations committee, and the democrat scheduled to be the next democratic leader, have all

come out and valued national security above partisan loyalty. that ought reason to cause every other democratic member of this body to take a second assessment of their own decisions. i also want to mention senator chris coons of connecticut, who even though he plans, unfortunately, to vote in favor of this deal, maintains that it should go to a vote and not go into effect by default because the minority can block cloture through a filibuster. in these dark times, it is at least encouraging to know there are still a handful of democrats who, in the tradition of scoop jackson and j.f.k. and joe lieberman, are willing to put country in front of party, are willing to defend national security. that used to be a robust tradition on the democratic side of the aisle. i would that there were more

scoop jackson democrats in the united states senate. i would that there were more j.f.k. democrats in the united states senate. i would that there were more joe lieberman democrats in the united states senate. it is also telling that not a single republican was persuaded by the president and the secretary of state, when they have told us this is the only option, that it is this deal, this catastrophic deal, or war. and that this is the very best deal we could have gotten. if that is so, we shouldn't have been negotiating in the first place. indeed, as israel's prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, noted, the one person telling the truth about this deal is iran's president rouhani who observed that iran has gotten everything they wanted from this deal. because this deal is, as prime minister netanyahu predicted, a very, very bad deal and an historic mistake. first and foremost, this

terrible deal will not stop a virulently anti-american and anti-israeli regime from getting a nuclear bomb. the so-called supreme leader, the ayatollah khamenei, declared that israel, which he calls "the little satan," would be nothing in 25 years. and that those 25 years would be made miserable because of the heroic attacks of radical islamic jihadists. america, he said, was the great satan. mr. president, he didn't say this in 1979. he tweeted it yesterday. this is the ayatollah khamenei, the person with whom the administration is making a deal to facilitate his having nuclear weapons. he is being candid.

he is telling us he intends to do everything possible to murder as many israelis as possible and to murder as many americans as possible. president obama's deal, if it goes through, will allow khomeini and his fellow mullahs to retain their centrifuges. they have established their -- quote -- right to enrich uranium. they have rejected attempts to inspect their site with possible military dimensions related to their nuclear program. indeed, this deal is without any credible inspection mechanism. not long ago, the administration was promising the american people so-called any time anywhere inspections. those inspections quickly morphed into inspections with 24 days' advance notice, plenty of time to ensure that the inspections will never uncover,

but even more laughable, even more farcical, this deal doesn't rely on american inspectors, it doesn't rely on international inspectors. this deal trusts the iranians to inspect themselves. it is not much of an exaggeration to say the inspection regime envisioned in this deal is simply picking up the phone, calling the ayatollah khomeini and asking are you developing nuclear weapons? no. very good. thank you. that is a regime designed to facilitate cheating, to facilitate surreptitious development of nuclear weapons with $150 billion to fuel and fund that development. and beyond that, the deal actually obligates signatories to assist iran in developing their programs which remarkably the secretary of state suggests will be used to try to cure

cancer, and even more remarkably obligates signatories to assist iran in defending against efforts by the nation of israel to stop a nuclear weapons regime that is a remarkable commitment that senate democrats have signed onto. in addition, this terrible deal makes concessions to iran completely unrelated to the nuclear program. for example, it provides sanctions relief for designated terrorists like general sulemani, the head of the revolutionary guards who should have no association with the iranian nuclear program whatsoever. iran and the iranian regime maintain the nuclear program is not a military program. then why is the military general covered in this agreement?

this man general sewell -- sulemami who has planned parenthood on his hands from the i.e.d.'s that he fund into iraq, murdered and maimed hundreds of american servicemen. four americans were cruelly excluded from this deal. an american citizen in prison for eight years in iranian prison for the crime of preaching the gospel. former marine hamir heckmani, and a former "washington post" reporter. it is a disgrace on our nation that we agree to any deal with tehran before they were liberated. finally, this terrible deal provides iran with $150 billion in economic relief which will inevitably be used to finance the violent terrorist mayhem that has been a signature of the

islamic republic since the 1979 revolution. it will in effect make the united states government the leading international financier of terrorists. we haven't even voted o.t. on this deal. we're already seeing the consequences play out in real time. senior iranian officials, including sulemani, who is technically still under a u.n. travel ban, have traveled to moscow to make arms deals with vladimir putin, arms that will flow to iran's terrorist proxies from yemen to gaza to lebanon to syria. syrian dictator bashar al-assad has gotten an economic lifeline in the form of a $1 billion line of credit. senior iranian officials have announced to the media that they will redouble their support for hamas because they -- quote -- reject the existence of any

israeli on this earth. do you want to understand who we're dealing with, that clarifies exactly what their intent is. in other words, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, iran, just got a $150 billion windfall courtesy of the united states government. the grim consequences of this activity can be seen on our tv screens as we witness hundreds of thousands of panicked refugees fleeing out of places where iran's proxies are active. of course, isis and its affiliates bear significant responsibility for this crisis, but make no mistake about it, tehran's bloody fingerprints are all over it as well. from the houthis to hamas to hezbollah, they are enabling and financing the radical islamic terrorists who are making life from north africa to the middle east utterly unbearable.

they are murdering christians and jews and other muslims who do not embrace their radical jihadist creed. this isn't complicated. the american people know this is a terrible deal. that's why president obama has only been able to persuade a minority of their duly elected representatives to support it. it is why as secretary kerry frankly admitted they didn't even try to submit their deal to the senate as a treaty, as they should have done. they prefer to jam it through by default or by presidential veto, anything to get what they believe will be a domestic political legacy. how typical it is of the washington cartel that one-third of one house of congress is trying to force this catastrophic deal on our country. and yet, even in the face of 42 democrats making a decision to

value partisanship over the national security of our country, over the standing of the nation of israel and protecting the lives of millions of americans, even in the face of that, there are serious steps we can take right now. there are two individuals in washington, d.c. who have the capacity still to stop this deal. their names are majority leader mitch mcconnell and speaker of the house john boehner. corker-cardin was unfortunately a very weak piece of review legislation, but it did have one small bit of teeth in it that ought to be used. under corker-cardin, the review period does not start until the administration submits the entirety of the deal to congress. that entirety is defined under corker-cardin to include any and all side deals.

this deal has at least two side deals, with the iaea concerning inspections. it is the laughable inspection regime that trusts the iranians to inspect themselves. those side deals have not been submitted to congress. under the terms of corker-cardin. the review period has not started and does not start until the entire deal is submitted to congress and the president cannot lift these sanctions until the review period expires. so therefore i call upon leadership of my party, leader mcconnell, speaker boehner, simply enforce the terms of corker-cardin. the administration has not submitted the deal. accordingly, we should not be voting on a resolution of disapproval because the corker-cardin clock never began to start and under corker-cardin, until the clock starts, the sanctions can't be lifted.

republicans in this body should not be facilitating this president yet again disregarding the law and doing so in contravention of the national security interests of this country. two final observations. if and when we vote on this deal, for every member of this body, i agree with my former colleague, former senator joe lieberman who said this may well be the most important vote any senator casts in his or her career. i am for every democrat who has come out in support of this deal. search your conscience. you can make a choice other than standing with your own party. you can stand up to your own party. trust me. i've done it myself. it is not the end of the world. i implore every democrat go home

and pray. go home and ask yourself how you will look in the eyes of the mother or father whose son was blown to bits by an iranian i.e.d. that came directly from general sulemani who we're now lifting sanctions on. how you will explain your vote that your son or daughter's life didn't matter enough to me that i was willing to reward their murderer. i can tell you that's not a conversation i'd ever like to have. i ask every democrat who said they support this deal to ask yourself that question. i ask you to ask the question how you will look in the eyes of the mothers and fathers and sons and daughters of those who will be murdered by hamas, by hezbollah, by the houthis, by radical islamist terrorists across the globe with the over $100 billion that this deal

gives them. osama bin laden murdered nearly 3,000 people on september 11, 2001. bin laden never had $100 billion at his disposal. this deal gives people every bit as evil, every bit as consumed with hatred resources, billions of dollars. and if this deal goes through, we know to an absolute certainty, americans will be murdered, israelis will be murdered, europeans will be murdered. and i ask every democratic member of this body to think before you cast the vote, how will you look in the eyes of the children of those who are murdered by terrorists who use the billions that this deal gives them to kill them? that's blood you can't wash your hands of. when you knowingly and willingly send billions of dollars to

jihadis who have declared their intention to murderous. there's no excuse you can hide behind when they carry through on the intention using the billions of dollars you have given them. and if god forbid iran ever acquires a nuclear weapon, the odds are unacceptably high they would, number one, use that nuclear weapon above our friend and ally, the nation of israel. for every democrat who maintains he or she is a friend of israel, you need to be prepared to explain how you facilitated a day that could see a nuclear warhead detonating over tel aviv. murdering millions. when prime minister netanyahu spoke to a joint session of congress, i participated in a panel discussion that my office organized with eli weizel who survived the holocaust. he said never again means never

again. the one threat that could kill six million jews is a nuclear iran. listen to eli weizel. the single most dangerous thing iran could do with a nuclear weapon is launch it from a ship into the atmosphere and set off an electrical pulse that could take down the electrical grid, that could kill tens of millions of americans. to every democrat, listen to those voices. and finally, if the democrats refuse to put our national security interests first, then it will be incumbent on the next president to undo the damage and any competent commander in chief should be prepared on the first day, on january 20, 2017, to rip to shreds this catastrophic iranian deal and to make clear to the ayatollah khomeini and other jihadists that under no circumstances will a nation led by those who chant death to

america, under no circumstances will iran be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. thank you. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the minority whip. mr. durbin: what time is remaining on the democratic side? the presiding officer: 36 minutes. mr. durbin: and how much on the other side? the presiding officer: 41 minutes. mr. durbin: thank you very much. i would like to just respond very briefly, very briefly before yielding to senator nelson of florida. i would say to the junior senator from texas i hope he listened carefully last sunday when general colin powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a man who risked his life in battle for america, a man who served as secretary of state under republican president george w. bush, same forward and endorsed this agreement that's been proposed before the senate. so to suggest that general powell and so many others are not aware of the security aspects of this agreement i

don't believe is a fair characterization. general powell and others understand better than i can, better than the senator from texas can, what it means to face these security issues. and what he said, i'd like to quote. he said that with respect to the iranians, don't trust, never trust, and always verify. so he comes to his conclusion, supporting this agreement, with the same degree of skepticism most of us do. i would not discount for a minute some of the activities that have been cataloged by the senator -- the junior senator from texas when it comes to iran. but if you think those were terrible -- and they were -- imagine iran with a nuclear weapon. that's what's at stake in this debate. currently iran has the capacity to build 10 nuclear weapons. 10. we want to stop them from doing that, putting inspectors in place. so when you list the litany of

horrors coming out of iran's terrorist activities, imagine those activities with a nuclear weapon. our goal is to stop the development of a nuclear weapon in iran. i yield the floor to the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, i will vote for the joint agreement. i want the senate and my colleagues from florida to understand. i gave a lengthy speech as to why i would support this some five weeks ago, in the early part of august before we adjourned. and, indeed, i, like most every other senator here, feels that this is one of the most important votes that we will cast. i bring to the table the

attempted insight given the fact of six years being a member of the intelligence committee and now having the privilege of being a senior member of the senate armed services committee. mr. president, the question is, for this agreement, is to prevent iran from having a nuclear bomb. that's the essential question does this agreement do that? this is not an agreement to stop bad behavior of iran, which, of course, i wish we could. this is not a question of whether or not we are going to

get iran to suddenly change its attitude about israel, which i wish we could. this is a question of preventing iran from building and producing a nuclear bomb. and i believe this agreement does it. and i believe it does it at both the declared sites and a future cheating at a covert site. now, there are three declared sites. those are going to be completely dismantled. the whole program is going to be dismantled. this is misunderstood when you talk about their centrifuges, of which they have the generation of centrifuge that is very

modernized and all of those are going to be cut in a third from approximately 19,000 and they're all going to be first generation, which is not the modernized centrifuges. that's one thing. but also they've got 12,000 kilograms of enriched uranium r. do you know how much that is? that's over 13 tons, to put it in the lingo that americans understand. that's going to be reduced under this agreement by 98% to 300 kilograms. in other words, less than one-fifth to make a bomb and, by the way, that enriched uranium

is going to be cut down not to 90% to build a bomb but 3.67% enriched uranium. also, going forward we're going to have the inspection from cradle to grave. from the very uranium mines where they dig up the uranium rocks, to the processing, which is crushing it into the yellow cake. constant surveillance of all of this. taking the yellow cake, making it into a gas. putting that gas into centrifuges and spinning it so that the uranium comes out of the gas in more concentrated

forms. and in the cascade of these centrifuges, then bringing it down to the enriched uranium in order to make a bomb. the same thing with plutonium. what about plutonium? in the one declared site, arac, they're going to fill it up with concrete and all the existing plutonium is going to be shipped out of the country. and i hope we're going to have lots of pictures of that as they do this. and, oh, by the way, as they shut down this program -- talking about this money that's held in the banks of five foreign countries that is the iranian oil money that they will eventually get -- you hear all

these figures, $150, $100. when you subtract out the iranian obligations, the net amount is still a lot of money, $56 billion. but they don't get that until they do all of this. and when is that going to be? probably a year from now, before they would ever get the money that's held in the banks of japan, south korea, china, india and taiwan. banks that are in countries that need oil, that want iranian oil, especially if iran in the future sells them oil at discounted

prices. you think those banks, those countries are going to keep that money if we walked away from this deal? no, the sanctions are going to dissipate, the money's going to flow. thank goodness, because of the joint agreement, that money is not going to flow probably a year from now, until they've done all of these things that are required in the agreement of dismantling their program. so what this agreement does is vastly reduces their ability to produce a bomb unless they cheat all right, let's talk about that. now, i said from the very beginning -- and this was part of my speech back five, six weeks ago, was president reagan

said trust, but verify, in dealing with the soviet union. i say, don't trust but verify. so the whole point is, if we think they're going to cheat -- and i can tell you this senator thinks they're going to try to cheat, although i think they clearly are going to comply with this -- and i think the outset, the preamble of the agreement says that it is understood that iran will never have a nuclear weapon. never, ever. but are some elements of their society, their government going to try to cheat? this senator thinks they will. so can we catch them? well, i think we clearly will. first of all, we're going to have a lot more insight into their nuclear attempted program

than we do now. and oh, by the way, we've got a vast intelligence network out there, along with our allies, that will penetrate. but on top of that, other than the three declared sites of iraq , natanz and fordhow, which will all be dismantled in the reductions which i just mentioned, and have immediate access to those sites, any other site that we suspect, we say we want to inspect, the max that they can rope-a-dope us is 24 days. so if they're trying to cheat, could they do a nuclear detonator? probably. but can they build a bomb?

the answer is no. why is it no, without us knowing? because when that site is suspected and we go in and have the inspection, you cannot hide energized, enriched uranium or plutonium. the half life of this stuff is thousands of years. you can't paint over it. you can't asphalt over it. we will find it because the radioactivity will be there. and if they cheat, what happens? the fact that we have caused them to reduce all of these things that i have mentioned, that means we have a year in advance to deal with it, whether it's a military strike, whether it's the sanctions going back

into place, and oh, by the way, this thing is structured -- the united nations sanctions go right back into place. you say, how in the world can you do that, because the u.n. security council, any one of those other countries, such as china or russia, they could object. no. that's not how this deal is structured. with the united states saying the sanctions go back, by ourselves, if they have cheated, those sanctions, those economic sanctions of the p-5 plus 1 -- who are they? -- u.k., france, germany, china, russia, united states -- six -- those sanctions go back into place. so we're going to have a year

advance if they are cheating. compare that, please, if we walked away from the deal today. they can have a nuclear bomb within a few months and the sanctions of our allies are going to dissipate because they've all told us that they'll dissipate if, in fact, we walk away from the deal. so i'll conclude with this. if this senator knows that we're in a situation and if we reject the deal that iran's going to have a nuclear bomb in a few months, as opposed to any prospect in the future of them having a nuclear bomb with us having a year advance but the

likelihood that it's 10, 15, 20, 25 years, this senator feels that the world is going to be a very different place in 15 to 20 years. and that for the protection of the interests of the united states and our allies, right now now -- and our allies include our strong ally, israel -- that it is important that iran not have a nuclear weapon, that we're dealing with an iran that does not have a nuclear weapon in the immediate future and instead, that we penetrate their society with much better understanding with them not having the capability of a nuclear weapon until years and years in the future.

for all of those reasons -- and you can tell, mr. president, this is coming right out of my heart, it's coming from here. it's not some written, read speech. for all for all those reasons it is the interest of the united states that this senator will vote to support the deal. i yield the floor. mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning business for up for as much time as i may consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: to the senator from florida, only 21% of the american people agree with his stated position there, and i hope, i'm sure he will hear from his constituents as he should. mr. president, i didn't come this morning, though, to talk about the agreement.

i will save my remarks for this afternoon when i've been asked to make. but, mr. president, i call attention to the urgent refugee crisis in our midst which men, women and children are fleeing by the thousands from the violence and destruction that has engulfed the middle east and north africa. this crisis didn't come out of nowhere. like an earthquake or a tornado. instead, it's the predictable result of this administration's policies of leading from behind. as conflicts of interest metastasized over the years by inaction by president obama and a total lack of american leadership. this did not happen by accident. it happened because of leading from behind. it happened because this president has refused to lead. and when a vacuum is created, this is the predictable result which many of us predicted. as we know, the vast majority

of these refugees are from syria, a country which is known little but death and destruction for four years as a murderous dictatorship and a war against a common enemy, the syrian people. as assad and isil spread cruelty. 63% of european asylum seekers in the past two years are syrians. but the truth is the refugee crisis is much bigger than what we are seeing today in europe. since 2011, well over 200,000 syrians have been killed, one million injured, eight million displaced, four million forced to seek refuge abroad in countries such as turkey, jordan, lebanon, and egypt. where the situation is not much better. the united nations has described this crisis as -- quote -- "the

greatest humanitarian crisis tragedy of our times." as conditions continue to deteriorate, with overcrowding, disease, violence, and exploitation, those who can are attempting to escape for the further west to seek places in europe. as the united nations estimates 50,000 people will escape to refuge between, about a quarter of these will be children. these children are increasingly leaving their families and homes to make dangerous journeys by sea and by land. while risk are their lives to risk abduction, and murder, are facing on these journeys for asylum. they're traversing on straw

vision, and during the debilitating psychological trauma, of course many are dying. the u.n. refugee agency has stated about 2,600 people have died while attempting to cross this year alone including 3-year-old elan kurdi. he grew up in the syrian city of cobany in turkey which in recent years has been under siege by isil and assad regime. his father abdul did what any parent would do for their children. they attempted to move elan and his 5-year-old brother to a safer home. abdul arranged for his family to board a boat by way of greece, a journey many transparented. when the kurdish families, they

were surprised how crowded the boat was. despite repeated questions about the voyage, they assured abdullah, it would be okay. shortly into the trip the water became rub you rough, rocking it back and forth until it capsized causing the passengers including elan, his mother and 4-year-old brother into the waters, and abdullah was unable to save his family. this photo, this photo which was taken shortly after elan's dead body was washed ashore opened the world's eyes to this devastating crisis. within hours of this photo being posted people across the world began to share it on social media, using the hashtag in airic that translates to washed onto shore. what haunts us even more than that than that before our eyes

is the fact that the united states will continue to do nothing meaningful about it. the conflicts of interest in syria, iraq, remember onand elsewhere in the middle east have taken lives of elan and countless other desperate refugees, not only a threat to our security but a crisis of conscience, a crisis of conscience, that challenges the moral fabric of our nation and global leadership. let's be clear. the current crisis before us is not a migrant issue, migrants leave for economic reasons. it is a mass exodus of refugees who are fleeing conflicts that this administration has refused to address for years. as the u.n. high commissioner stated last week, this is a primarily refugee crisis, not

only a migration phenomenon, a the vast majority of those arriving in greece arrive from conflict zones such as iraq or afghanistan and are simply running for their lives. i say to the media, stop calling it a migration. these are not migrants. these are refugees from torture, from murder, from killing, from genocide. statements like and images like these should not be a source of sympathy, they should be a call to action. let me just read quote from "the wall street journal" editorial this morning. quote -- "another syria failure. it's hard to believe the debacle that as the bangs syria policy could get worse. u.s. sources have been leaking that russia may be preparing for a major military deployment to keep bashar assad in power in

damascus. by quoting diplomats, the expeditionary force is already in syria awaiting helicopters to make strikes against the islamic state. mr. assad is a russian ally and vladimir putin is not about to let him fall without a bigger fight. president obama has created an opening for this russian intervention by minimizing u.s. interests in the outcome of syria's civil war. he has refused to offer more than token help to pro-western syrians ceding the battlefield to assad-russia axis. the flow of refugees -- don't aspect any diminishment in the refugees any time soon. president obama issued his presidential study directive stating -- quote -- "atrocities and genocide is a core national

security interest and a core moral responsibility of the united states. that was in 2011. he went on to say, our security is affected when masses of civilians are slaughtered, refugees flow across borders and murderers wreak havoc on stability and livelihoods. in 2013, president obama at the holocaust museum the president said -- and i quote -- "too often the world has failed to prevent the killing of innocents on a massive scale and we are haunted by the atrocities that we did not stop and the lives we did not save. and in a 2013 address to the u.n. general assembly president obama said this and i'd like to quote him at length. quote -- "this is the president's address to the united states general assembly.

quote -- "the sovereignty is at the core, but it cannot be shielded from tyrants. or make excuse to turn a blind eye. while we need to be modest in our belief that we can remedy every evil, while we need to be mindful that the world is funded of consequences should we really accept the notion that the world is powerless in the face of a rwanda or srebrenica? if that is the world people want to live in, they should say see and reckoning with the cold logic of mass graves. i suggest strongly that given the fact there is no policy, there is no strategy, no effective way of stemming this horror, that the president of the united states should say so and reckon with the cold logic of mass graves. that was our president. i agree, by the way, with every

word he said but how can the american people reconcile these words with pictures of dead children and desperate refugees literally running for their lives? how can president obama say it is our moral obligation to do what we can to prevent the worst atrocities in our world but refuses to do anything to stop the atrocities that are occurring every single day in syria and across the middle east? where is that president obama today? where is the president obama who has spoken so movingly of the moral responsibilities that great power confers? unfortunately, the administration is still -- quote -- "considering a range of options" -- unquote -- i'm not making that up -- a range of options to respond to this issue. and national security council

spokesman said this week, in the meantime the president and cabinet officials are pushing an agreement that legitimizes iran which is not only the leading state sponsor of terror in the world, but the patron of the assad regime which is summon for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of syrians. after this deal iran's power in the region will only be enhanced and it is safe to assume that they'll be using billions of dollars to boost arms supplies to proxies to sow chaos in the region and prop up assad right when he needs it most. as the administration stands by by, russia is capitalizing on the inaction to provide support for the regime according to numerous press reports, an air

field at assad's stronghold in western syria. russia could soon deploy a thousand or more personnel into syria to conduct air operations in support of assad's forces. our government is doing what it has, sadly, done too often in the past. receding our strength and averting our eyes. our trying to awage our consciences by telling ourselves we're not doing nothing but it is a claim made in bad faith. for everyone concedes that everything we are doing is equal to the horrors we face. we are telling ourselves we're too tired, we're weary to get more involved, that this is not our problem. to help resolve this problem is not our responsibility and it is no options to end the conflicts of interest today. the -- conflicts today.

it is true much could be done in 2011, in 2012, in 2013, in 2014, and there is still more we can do today to respond to this growing crisis. my friends, my colleagues, my fellow americans, i fear the longer this violence goes on, the more difficult it will be to bring it to an end. failing to do so will leave a dangerous vacuum that enables extremeism to grow and enables terrorists to recruits they can wreak havoc on the region and threaten the united states of america. it's not too late. we must not avert our eyes from aylin. we must commit to a strategy to

defeat the forces in the region that are sowing chaos and destruction. failing to act now leaves us with even fewer options to defy this terrible chapter in our history. and speaking of history, mr. president, i am a student of history. and i don't believe there are exact pair else in american history. but there are certain areas where a failure to lead leads to catastrophic consequences. in 1938, on october 5, a man named winston churchill who had been shunned by his colleagues, been ridiculed in the house of commons for his constant speaking and warning, and one of my favorites of the appearances that he made before the house of commons and his fellow citizens, he said, "and do not suppose this is the end.

this is only the beginning of the reckoning. this is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year, unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor we rise again and take our stand for freedom as in olden times." mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. i'm coming to the in regard today to speak on the -- i'm coming to the floor today to speak on the nuclear agreement. having just come back, after having spent sunday morning in one of the biggest refugee camps in syria, more than half of the children under the age of 18,

with more than 250 leaving the camp because they have lost hope and are more willing to live inside a dangerous syria with their lives in danger than to live inside this camp, let me associate myself with the imperative that senator mccain laid before us, that we can do more. i don't agree with his diagnosis of how we got here, nor do i likely agree with his solution in terms of prescriptions to solve the problem, but i certainly agree that this body and the administration should be standing up and bearing our share of the burden when it comes to this humanitarian crisis, having seen it now firsthand for myself. mr. president, piece peace is a, messy business, as rabin said upon the recognition of the p.l.o., a really hard thipg for the israelis to do, he said, you don't make peace with your friends, mawk it wit you make iy

unsavory enemies. someone that you have a long history of disagreement and conflict. unless peace comes through unconditional surrender -- and that frankly doesn't happen very much in the post nuclear age -- then peace by nature is going to be a compromise. it doesn't come through one side getting everything it wants. thus, by dea definition, it is g to feel fairly unsatisfactory. i say this because viewing the iran deal through that prism allows me to understand why so many people are voting "no" and it allows me to understand why many of those that are voting "yes" took a long time to get there. what i have trouble understand something all of the revisionist history that is crowding this chamber right now. i don't think there was a single member of the senate that didn't in principle support the idea of negotiatinnegotiating an end tos nuclear weapons program.

and i don't remember anyone understanding that the sanctions we leveled against them were aimed at ending their nuclear program. we had a whole different set of captions 0en that activity. but now there are all sorts of that this idea represents a give-and-take between the united states and iran. why don't we get everything, a lot of people are asking? or the failure of this agreement to settle all of our disputes with iran at once. but they still do bad stuff, people say. i view these protests largely as cover no for a "no" vote that is likely about something else. we always knew this was goington a gulf o negotiation. you can't complain about the end balance -- keeks u you request a end balance.

we can all rage about iran's support for terrorism. but we all passed sanctions bills knowing they were about their nuclear program, not all these other activities. thus, it must stand to reason that these sanctions would be removed if iran came to the table and satisfied our concerns about their nuclear program, not our concerns about everything else that they do that's terrible. peace is never perfect. diplomacy is frankly mostly ugly, but it matters. because why on earth do we spend $500 billion every year on the world's biggest, baddest, most capable military force if we aren't willing to use it? and i don't mean use it in the way that senator graham or senator cotton may mean "use it," i mean use it by entering into peaceful agreements that are held in place by the threat

of overwhelming u.s. military force. our planes and our bombs and our brigades, these are the muffle tha-- these are the muscle that ensures that agreements are lived up to. america more than any other country in the world can afford to take a diplomatic risk because we can clean it up fast if it goes wrong. now, i don't think this agreement is going to go wrong, but i sure like knowing that a bunker-busbusting bomb is waitig in the wings if it does. i'll sleep better knowing that we are keeping together an unprecedented international coalition that will stand with us if we need to drop that bomb. this body often seems to forget that american power is not simply exercised through the blunt force of military power. and president obama frankly is not the first president to be pressed by hawks in congress and

outside of congress to force diplomacy in favor of war. the bch bipartisan congressional leadership meeting with president kennedy was unanimous in its support for an attack and possibly the invasion of cuba. all of them thought that talking to russia about a negotiated solution equaled weakness. president kennedy didn't listen, and in over 13 days he worked out a peaceful solution to the cuban missile crisis that history looks kindly upon. president reagan upon signing the i.m.f. treaty leaned over to gorbachev and said, "the hard liningers in both our countries are bleeding when we shake hands today." hawks in congress didn't want an agreement with our sworn enemy, russia. they didn't understand why we'd sign a nuclear agreement with a country that was still out for american blood on so many other

fronts. but history tells us that the rism treati.m.f. treaty was pean russia to reform. i hear this almost every day. it doesn't just come with respect to this agreement. almost every time we sit across the table from someone we have a disagreement with, the claim is that it is munich all over again. but munich is the exception not the rule. there are plenty more diplomatic agreements to avert war that went right. it doesn't mean that you don't use 1938 as a caution, but it doesn't mean that it is an automatic parallel to every single time we are trying to settle our disputes at the negotiating table rather than through the means of arms. and, mr. president, our partners in the middle east largely get this. i just returned from this trirntion as i mentioned, to the region -- qatar, and jordan with

senator peters. we heard about support for the huthis in yemen, funding shiite militias, pumping money into hezbollah and hamas to threaten israel. but despite this, every arab leader we met with, every single one supports this agreement. and they gave two basic reasons and i want to share them with you because they mirror the reasons for my support swvment first, they know that no matter how dangerous iran is today, they shudder to chicago how much dangerous iran would be if they possessed a nuclear weapon. they believe this agreement is the best way to keep iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and they support it, to a country, first and foremost, for that reason. before this deal, iran had 19,000 centrifuges. after it they will have just a few thousand. before this deal, iran was

enriching up to 20% and was only a newtowns from being able to enrich in a level to get on a pathway to a bomb. after this, enrichment will be down. after this agreement, their stockpile is reduced by 97%. before this deal, the only way that we knew what was going on in the nuclear program was through covert surveillance, after the deal we're going to have a network of inspectors crawling over every inch of their program to make sure they aren't cheating. second, our arab partners that we visited with in the region know that all of the problems in the region can't be solved without iran at the table. and while they aren't sure that this agreement by itself will draw iran into peaceful negotiations over syria or yemen or iraq -- and i think none of us can be sure that that's how this will play out -- they are certain that a rejection of the agreement by the united states congress will virtually guarantee that iran won't come

to the table. they talk openly about fearing a newly isolated iran, the rejection of this agreement empowering the hard-liners, punishing the moderates and pushing iran away from any constructive dialogue in the region. our arab partners don't love the terms of this agreement anymore than the united states senate does, but they know that the alternative -- a retrenched iran with a green light to start back up their nuclear program -- is the most dangerous outcome of all. they understand what supporters of the deal understand: that this idea that if congress were to reject the agreement, we could come back to the table and get a better one is pure fiction. it's pure political fiction made up by people who don't want to sound like they don't have an alternative plan, when they really don't. no one with any credible diplomatic experience in the middle east believes that iran will come back to the table if

congress rejects this deal. and our international partners have told us to our face that they won't come back to the table if we reject this deal. a better deal is fantasy, plain and simple. here's what happens. here's what really happens if congress rejects this deal that is supported by all of our negotiating partners -- britain, france, germany, china, russia, the entirety of the security council and all of our arab partners in the region. what happens is that iran starts backing up their nuclear program, centrifuges climb to 25,000, 30,000, enrichment gets closer to the level necessary for a bomb. the inspectors gets kicked out, our eyes on the program disappear. sanctions fray at first and likely disappear over time. iran gets everything that it wants. if gets its nuclear program and it gets sanctions relief.

what a catastrophic outcome that would be. as bad as that reality would be it actually gets worse. we know the hard-liners have been marginalized as a result of this deal. the moderated, which is a frankly relative term inside iran, are gaining power rejection of this deal would be a gift to hard-liners and would likely lead rouhani to be replaced by a proxy who would lead iran down a path that is even more dangerous -- hard believe -- than the path that they are on today. and lastly, the united states would just become an international pariah. with all of our partners at the negotiating table, almost every nation around the world supporting this agreement, what would it say if the united states congress walked away? our power as a nation would be irreparably damaged. now, i heard senator cruz on the floor earlier today chastising democrats, yelling at us, about how we could live with ourselves

doing a deal with our mortalen mi iran. so met me ask him and others who oppose this agreement with the rhetoric that he uses a question in return. how could opponents of this deal live with themselves if a rejection of this deal would result in, one, iran restarting its nuclear program; two, sanctions dramatically weakening; three, inspections ending; and, four, hard-liners being empowered inside iran? the fact is that many republicans opposed this agreement before they read it. senator cruz opposed it within an hour of its announcement. and so i don't know how some opponents of this bill can live with themselves having made a political decision to oppose the most important diplomatic agreement that moves us will vote on during our time here.

madam president, this isn't a perfect deal. but no diplomatic agreement ever is. peace, as the great israeli leader, yitzhak rabin, told us, is never easy. but history almost always judges that it's worthwhile. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. and i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: