Iran Deal Advent of 'Second Nuclear Age'?

By Chris Mitchell

CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief

Thursday, September 03, 2015

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is one of the most outspoken critics of the Iranian nuclear deal. Cotton visited Israel this week and explained to CBN News why he believes this agreement may be one of the worst in American history.

Sen. Cotton met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders about the Iranian deal. He says the deal puts Israel and the United States in great danger.

"Even if Iran follows the deal to the letter, they're going to be a nuclear threshold state in a mere 10 or 15 years, which Prime Minister Netanyahu says is a blink of an eye in the life of nations," Cotton told CBN News.

Secretary of State John Kerry made the case that the deal is the best way to prevent Iran from going nuclear.

"Without this agreement, Iran's breakout time was two months," Kerry said. "With this agreement, it will increase by a factor of six, to at least a year, and it will remain at that level for a decade or more."

"Without this agreement, Iran could double its operating centrifuges almost overnight, and continue expanding with ever more efficient designs," he continued. "With this agreement, Iran's centrifuges will be reduced by two-thirds for 10 years."

Sen. Cotton exposed the secret side deal between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over Iran's sensitive military site at Parchin. Instead of outside inspectors, the deal allows Iran to inspect itself and send in the results to the U.N. inspection agency.

"It's kind of like letting an NFL player take his own drug test at home and mail it in to Roger Godell at NFL offices so he can establish his eligibility," the senator said.

Cotton said if Iran goes nuclear, they're different from other nations.

"Iran is run by radical clerics who continually chant 'death to America' and 'death to Israel' in the street led by their national leadership," he explained. "They have the blood of hundreds of Americans on their hands from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They continue to kill Jews all around the world … and they are destabilizing the entire Middle East."

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the president has the votes he needs in the Senate to uphold his promised veto.

"So for the first time in American history a deal is going to go forward with a majority vote against it in both the Senate and the House and a strong majority of the American people against it," Cotton said.

"This nuclear deal is going to be the worst agreement in the history of American foreign policy and that's because the president didn't respect the Constitution, didn't respect the treaty clause of the Constitution," he continued.

"If there's anything that should have been submitted to the Congress as a treaty it's a nuclear arms deal with a mortal and unrepentant enemy," Cotton said.

With Middle East nations already saying publically and privately they want nuclear weapons, Cotton fears the deal will inevitably lead to a nuclear arms race with possible catastrophic consequences to the region and to the United States.

"I believe if this deal goes forward, we are at risk of entering a second nuclear age and the loss of life, not in the tens, not in the thousands, not in even the hundreds of thousands -- but in the millions," he warned. "And that loss of life could include American life because Iran is also developing a ballistic missile program and they also have shown they are willing to kill Americans."