Senator Ted Cruz during a press conference on April 6, 2022
Senator Ted Cruz has criticized the Biden administration for ‘deliberately’ keeping Congress in the dark over the details of a potential nuclear deal with Iran.
In a brief interview with Iran International’s correspondent Arash Alaei on Thursday, the Texas Republican Senator said the reason the administration doesn’t want everybody to know about the details “unfortunately is the deal they’re negotiating [which] is a terrible deal for America”.
“Joe Biden has asked [Russian President] Vladimir Putin to negotiate on our behalf, and Russia is negotiating with Iran right now in Vienna. Russia is our enemy and Iran is our enemy”, he added, noting that “the one thing they can agree on is policies that endanger the safety and security of America”.
“This deal is a catastrophic mistake and that’s why the Biden administration is so desperate to hide the details of it from the elected members of the Congress”, Cruz said.
Former president Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran known as JCPOA in 2018, saying it was in adequate to keep Tehran from building nuclear weapons. He imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. President Joe Biden announced before the 2020 presidential elections that Trump’s policy was wrong, and he would work to revive the JCPOA.
Republicans have opposed Biden’s approach from the beginning and their objections became more intense as reports emerged that the White House was weighing the removal of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). More Democrats have lately joined the opposition as talks in Vienna to revive the JCPOA have stalled.
About the administration’s options in case of the collapse of the deal, he said, “What they should do is return to the policy of [Donald Trump’s] maximum pressure; they should impose sanctions, they should enforce sanctions”.
Slamming Biden for easing on the oil sanctions that has seen Iran increase its oil exports and revenues, he said, “Right now the Biden administration is turning a blind eye while Iran openly flouts the oil sanctions. The Biden administration is allowing the Ayatollah to sell a million barrels of oil a day with no consequences”.
“The Biden administration has delisted [Iran-backed] Houthis as terrorists even as they carry out ongoing terror attacks”, Cruz said, adding that “the answer is to reverse course entirely; end their policies of weakness, appeasement, and surrender, and instead follow a policy of maximum pressure to prevent the ayatollah from developing nuclear weapons and carrying out terror attacks against Americans and our allies”.