With a captured Iranian Shahed-136 drone displayed beside them, congressional Republicans argued for a full-throttle dismantling of Tehran’s nuclear program during an event organized by United Against Nuclear Iran.
“There is significant talk about potential solutions in which the ayatollah gets to keep a civilian nuclear program but must give up all his enrichment capacity, and how that might be a solution,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told attendees in the Caucus Room of the Cannon House Office Building on Thursday.
“I don’t think the ayatollah needs uranium for any kind of energy production,” the senator said. “Iran floats on a sea of oil. They are not lacking for energy.”
Cruz’s message for attendees, and that of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), appeared to contrast with some of the messaging from the Trump administration, with some officials close to the president suggesting that it would be acceptable for the Islamic Republic to keep some elements of a civilian nuclear program in place.
JNS asked Cruz if he was concerned the White House might agree to a revised nuclear accord with Tehran to announce a deal.
“There may be some in the administration that are not as focused as they should be on President Trump’s red lines,” Cruz told JNS. “His red line is exactly right—full and total dismantlement. That needs to be the standard.”
“I’m confident the president is going to hold that line,” he said.
Cruz, who is reportedly leading a Senate effort to urge the Trump administration to insist on complete Iranian dismantlement, told attendees that returning to the previous nuclear pact’s provisions, on inspections and verifications of compliance, is no longer possible.
International inspectors recently said they had “lost continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and its stockpiles of enriched uranium, he said.
The House speaker told attendees that Republicans will keep implementing Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, and will do so “until we see full and permanent nuclear disarmament. Nothing less.”
“Any framework for peace and stability in the Middle East hinges on that,” Johnson said. “Under no circumstances can the world’s leading sponsor of terror ever obtain a nuclear weapon.”
Other members of Congress who spoke at the event largely agreed.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told JNS that he isn’t happy with the pace and tone of negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
“No, not a bit. You don’t negotiate anything like we’ve negotiated in the past,” he told JNS. “It has to be unconditional surrender of not only their nuclear weapons but their proxy activity in Ukraine, in Israel or Gaza and the West Bank.”
Iran also must give up any additional weapons with which “they try to resupply a now-free Lebanon,” Issa said. He added that Iran must not only end its nuclear enrichment but also all of its other destabilizing activities.
“Negotiate, sure. Negotiate an end to their exporting of terrorism—not just nuclear weapons,” he told JNS. “If you do nuclear weapons alone, it’s only a question of time until they cheat.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, told JNS that a similar version of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which the Obama administration signed and which Trump withdrew in 2018, is not acceptable.
“Ultimately, from my vantage point, this cannot be a JCPOA 2.0,” he told JNS. “There must be a very clear understanding between Iran and the United States and our allies that they cannot and will not have any nuclear capabilities or the ability to enrich uranium. Period.”
“They have a choice. They can choose to negotiate and come to an agreement or not, but either way, they cannot and will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon,” Lawler said.
One speaker on Thursday seemed a bit more dovish.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told JNS that “the main thing that we’ve got to have is the engagement” with Tehran.
“We want to be able to sit down and be able to talk and to be able to work this out and not allow Iran to be able to have a nuclear weapon,” the senator told JNS. “The Trump administration knows full well how to be able to put pressure on the Iranians.”
Several United Against Nuclear Iran representatives also spoke on Thursday, as did Bogdan Klich, the head of mission at the Polish embassy in Washington.
Poland brought the drone, which was on display at the event, to Washington after Russia used it to attack Ukraine. Several speakers said that the missile’s provenance showed that Iran’s harmful reach extends well beyond the Middle East.
