Fourteen years after the 9/11 attacks, the threat from extremists is still growing, House Homeland Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in Saturday's
GOP address, adding that President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran will allow it to continue sponsoring terrorism and will not keep it from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"We cannot forget that the radical Shi’a regime in Iran remains the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism," the Texas Republican said, promising that he and his colleagues who understand the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran will continue to oppose the agreement.
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This week, the House rejected the agreement on a bipartisan vote. However, on Thursday,
Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-backed effort to kill the deal, with 40 Democrats and two independents voting to block a resolution disapproving the pact, one vote more than the minimum needed to keep it from advancing.
"We cannot forget that the radical Iranian leaders have called for our defeat and the destruction of our close ally, Israel," McCaul said. "The regime is responsible for more than 1,000 American casualties during the Iraq war, they have plotted a terrorist attack here in our nation’s capital, and launched destructive cyber-attacks against American companies."
Obama's policies "embolden Iran's leaders," McCaul said, allowing the regime's terrorist networks to spread.
"And the President allowed Iran to get closer to a nuclear weapon," he commented. "Over the last six years, Iran has defied international sanctions, completed an underground nuclear facility, and amassed a large stockpile of enriched uranium."
Further, the deal frees more than $100 billion for Iran "to fuel the regime’s global campaign of Islamist terror."
It also will not curb the country's production of intercontinental ballistic missiles, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promising to mass produce the weapons, said McCaul.
"This was not a negotiation with an honest government," said McCaul. "It was a negotiation with terrorists, who chant ['Death to America' and stand against freedom and democracy."