News and Commentary

Ted Cruz Proposes Important Amendment To Finally End Iran’s Civil-Nuclear Waivers

   DailyWire.com

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), arguably the single most authentically pro-Israel elected politician in America, has long been hard-nosed and hawkish on the uniquely evil threat posed by the radical terror mullocracy governing the Islamic Republic of Iran. As I noted back in February, here is how Cruz recently put it in an important foreign policy address delivered to the American Enterprise Institute:

If we ever discover the Ayatollah is on the verge of getting nuclear weapons, and I believe his ambitions will continue to be doing just that, we should be prepared to use crushing military force to make sure that doesn’t happen. Military force to destroy their nuclear capacity — that should be our objective. Why? Because that is what our national interest is. To prevent an Ayatollah who chants “death to America” and “death to Israel” from ever having weapons capable of murdering in a flash of light millions of American souls.

Cruz’s “non-interventionist hawk” foreign policy profile prioritizes the blistering aggression of counter-jihadism when need be — while also prudently resisting American resources getting sucked into sharia tribal warfare in third-world backwaters, so that our military and social capital may be conserved for truly necessary military exercises.

The threat posed by Iran, which is the world’s number one state sponsor of cultivated and exported jihadism, meets any definition of a serious geopolitical threat posed to American interests. And as The Daily Wire reported in April, Cruz recently found himself allied with fellow Iran hawks Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and a small handful of other Republican senators, as well as National Security Advisor John Bolton, on the issue of fully ending waivers for Iran’s allegedly “civil” nuclear research program. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, at the time, was opposed to the Cruz-led push to once and for all end waivers for Iran’s civil-nuclear research program.

At the time, Cruz helped craft a letter, a copy of which The Daily Wire obtained from a Republican staffer, that urged the Trump administration to take four concrete steps: (1) once and for all end all U.S. implementation of the Iran deal by refusing to reissue waivers permitting civil nuclear work, (2) urge the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to reopen its file on the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program, (3) properly designate all Iranian entities named in the Israeli government’s previously seized nuclear archive from Tehran, and (4) explicitly reference the aforementioned nuclear archive in the Trump administration’s upcoming report to Congress on “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments.”

Now, Cruz has a new proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would codify this termination of Iran’s civil-nuclear waivers into law. The proposed amendment, a copy of which The Daily Wire has also obtained, would formally amend the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012 to end waivers and finally impose sanctions on Iran’s “civil” nuclear sector.

This is common sense policy, pure and simple. Iran, which has one of the world’s largest oil reserves, has no need whatsoever for a “civil” nuclear program. Instead, it is far more likely that the “civil” program is being used to hoodwink and bamboozle easily duped Westerners into inadvertently supporting the terrorist regime’s nuclear weapon ambitions.

“Sen. Cruz believes that it’s long past time to fully tear up the catastrophic Obama Iran nuclear deal, including by making Iran’s nuclear program off-limits to the international community through the sector-based designation described in his amendment,” a Cruz spokesman told The Daily Wire. “He has also called upon the Trump administration to take steps that would reinforce this measure, including ending civil-nuclear waivers that allow Iran to build up its program and invoking the snapback provision in United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 to restore international sanctions.”

While the amendment’s chances of being adopted into the NDAA may be slim, this is nonetheless a move that ought to be unambiguously applauded. Conservative Iran hawks ought to be thankful, yet again, for Cruz’s leadership on the issue of preventing a nuclear Iran.

Got a tip worth investigating?

Your information could be the missing piece to an important story. Submit your tip today and make a difference.

Submit Tip
The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Ted Cruz Proposes Important Amendment To Finally End Iran’s Civil-Nuclear Waivers