Shortly after Iranian foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke at New York University, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) responded, criticizing Zarif’s demand that U.N.-imposed sanctions on Iran must be lifted immediately upon completing a nuclear deal and challenging Zarif to a debate.
On his website, Cotton pointed out that Zarif’s remarks contradicted President Barack Obama, who has insisted that sanctions can only be lifted once Iran complies with the obligations of any future deal:
“President Obama promised sanctions would only be lifted when Iran’s compliance with restrictions on their nuclear program were verified. But earlier today, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif once again contradicted the President’s interpretation saying:
If we have an agreement on the 30th of June, within a few days after that, there will be a resolution before the UN Security Council under Article 41 of Chapter 7 which will be mandatory for all member states whether Senator Cotton likes it or not.
“Sanctions relief isn’t about what I like, but what will keep America safe from a nuclear-armed Iran. But I suspect Foreign Minister Zarif is saying what President Obama will not because the President knows such terms would be unacceptable to both Congress and the American people. The repeated provocative statements made by members of the Iranian leadership demonstrate why Iran cannot be trusted and why the President’s decision to pursue this deal and grant dangerous concessions to Iran was ill-advised from the beginning. These aren’t rhetorical tricks aimed at appealing to hard-liners in Iran; after all, Mr. Zarif was speaking in English in New York. Rather, they foreshadow the dangerous posture Iran will take and has taken repeatedly—including as recently as yesterday with the interception of a U.S.-affiliated cargo ship—if this deal moves forward.
In addition to pointing out Zarif’s contradiction of the president, Cotton, a graduate of Harvard Law School, responded to Zarif’s mention of his name by challenging him to a debate on Twitter, and to discuss Iran’s support of “tyranny, treachery, & terror.”
Hey @JZarif, I hear you called me out today. If you’re so confident, let’s debate the Constitution. 1/4
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) April 29, 2015
Here’s offer: meet in DC, @JZarif, time of your choosing to debate Iran’s record of tyranny, treachery, & terror. 2/4
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) April 29, 2015
In his talk yesterday, Zarif also defended Iran’s seizure of a cargo ship in an internationally recognized shipping lane, as well as the espionage trial of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.
Cotton was the lead author of an open letter, signed by 47 senators last month, that asserted that Congress would have a Constitutionally-mandated role in ending any American-imposed sanctions on Iran. In response, Zarif revealed that Iran intended to have sanctions first lifted by the United Nations Security Council as a means of pressuring the United States to lift the sanction it had imposed on Iran.
In an interview earlier this month, Cotton asserted that moderates in Iran were not being empowered through the negotiations, and that a bad deal could lead to nuclear war in the Middle East.
[Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr ]