The United States should back away from the negotiating table with Iran, and instead tighten sanctions until Tehran shows it is "serious, forthright and open," Florida Rep. Ted Yoho said Friday on "America’s Forum" on
Newsmax TV.
"If you ask anybody that's paying attention to this, the whole role of the United States is to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon," said Yoho.
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"This agreement will not do that. It will not be containment. It sunsets in three to five years or 10 years, and there are no restrictions on Iran. The president going right to the Iranian people, I kind of see it as what the senators did. They went right to the Iranian ayatollahs to let them know where we stand on this, and the president's trying to say, 'No, I stand at a different area.' It's not the way to do diplomacy that I would prefer to see."
In a message Thursday to Iran’s leaders and people on the Iranian New Year,
President Barack Obama said the coming year provides the "best opportunity in decades" for the countries to improve their relationship.
From the get-go, Iran has done nothing to show it is serious about its desire to reach a deal, according to Yoho.
"When we opened the negotiations with them on these sanctions, we got nothing out of it," he said. "They're still holding four American citizens. As a good-faith gesture, you would think that we would have had Iran say, 'Well, I'll tell you what, if you're serious, turn our Americans loose and then we'll come to the table.'"
Instead of opening itself up for inspections, Iran has chosen a tact of "secrecy and isolation," he added.
"All that Iran has done has been in secrecy," said Yoho. "We've got evidence that they have detonated a nuclear trigger device. You would only need that for a nuclear bomb. But yet, they won't let us go in there and inspect, and if they're not willing to let our inspectors or the international inspectors go in there . . ."
The Obama administration needs to remember that the U.S. is "in the driver’s seat," he added, and leverage that power instead of "giving it away."
In order to have a true negotiation, he said, there needs to be "trust and verification," something Tehran has sidestepped.
"Iran has backed up and has hidden requests or they blocked requests for the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] going in and inspecting these areas," said Yoho.
Reports of an
Iranian military textbook endorsing an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the U.S. is evidence that Tehran is no friend of the U.S., Yoho said.
"An EMP explosion would wipe out our grid, wipe out our cellular system. We need to heed the warning, and the warning's real clear and evident."