Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Monday slammed the interim agreement the Obama administration and five world powers reached with Iran last week to stem Tehran’s nuclear program, asserting that it takes pressure off a bad actor in the Middle East.
"The administration needs to explain to the Congress and the American people why an interim agreement should result in reduced pressure on the world’s leading state sponsor of terror," McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement.
McConnell suggested that Iran got the better of the U.S., the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France and Germany at the negotiating table in Lausanne, Switzerland because it was able to retain a significant number of centrifuges while getting sanctions eased against the country.
"In initially reviewing the parameters of the interim agreement, several things are obvious: Iran will continue to enrich uranium and retain more than 6,000 centrifuges, and continue the research and development of more advanced centrifuges," McConnell said. "Under no terms should the administration suspend sanctions, nor should the United Nations remove sanctions until the Iranians reveal all aspects of the Possible Military Dimensions of its previous research."
He said the Senate will begin its response to the deal next Tuesday when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee takes up a bill that would require Obama to submit the agreement for a 60-day congressional review.
Discussing the deal last week, Obama urged lawmakers to give it a thorough analysis and not simply look at it through a political lens. In an interview with The New York Times published Sunday, Obama called the interim agreement a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see whether or not we can at least take the nuclear issue off the table."
McConnell disagreed Monday.
"To the detriment of international security--specifically regarding the security of the United States, Israel and other allies, as well as preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East--the Obama administration has always approached the goal of these negotiations as reaching the best deal that is acceptable to Iran, rather than what should be our national goal: ending Iran's nuclear program," he said.