WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP/WMOT) -- Tennessee Senator Bob Corker tangled Thursday in a congressional hearing with Secretary of State John Kerry over the nuclear arms deal Kerry struck earlier this month with Iran.
Corker chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and recently championed legislation that gives Congress the opportunity to review the deal made with Iran.
Opening that review process yesterday, Corker was scathing in his assessment of the agreementl Kerry negotiated.
“From my perspective, Mr. Secretary, I’m sorry, but not unlike a hotel guest that leaves only with a hotel bathrobe on his back, I believe you’ve been fleeced. In the process of being fleeced, what you’ve really done here is, you’ve turned Iran from being a pariah, to now Congress…Congress being the pariah.”
Kerry fired back, painting the negotiations with Iran in stark terms.
“Lets’ understand what was really on the table here. We set out to dismantle their ability to be able to build a nuclear weapon and we’ve achieved that. Nobody has ever talked about actually dismantling their entire program, because when that was being talked about that’s when they went from 163 centrifuges to 19,000. Everybody here at this dais know what the options are for actually stopping that. It’s called military action.”
Kerry also asserted that if Congress rejects the deal as negotiated by the Obama Administration and several other world powers, that America would likely find little support among allies for renewed sanctions or war.