​Sen. John Hoeven defends Iran letter

North Dakota’s GOP senator is one of 47 facing criticism

Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) has come under criticism for being one of 47 Republican senators to sign a letter sent to the leaders of Iran stating that any nuclear deal with President Obama is not approved by Congress and is subject to being overturned by them and future administrations. Some have even gone so far as call Hoeven and the other senators traitors for undermining the president by sending the letter. HPR reached out to Sen. Hoeven for answers on why he signed the letter and to ask what happens next.

HPR: Why did you sign the letter?

HOEVEN: Well, we are working on bipartisan legislation that would require the president to bring any agreement with Iran to the Senate for a vote and he not only said that he won’t bring any agreement to the Senate but he would veto bipartisan legislation that would require him to bring any agreement to the Senate for a vote. And that’s important to the vote because we need to know that under the agreement Iran is not going to get a bomb. Because Congress put the sanctions in place that has brought Iran to the negotiating table. And so the letter was really a response to the president’s not only unwillingness to bring the agreement to the Senate but his threat to veto bipartisan legislation.

HPR: Some have said that many of the Republican senators blindly followed a young, bold freshman Republican senator who was trying to throw his weight around without reading the letter.

HOEVEN: You have almost half the Senate sign the letter … and what’s important is that we make sure Iran doesn’t get a bomb and so you can talk about the process or the procedure if you want but what’s important is the substance. And that is that we either have to verify that we have an agreement that prevents Iran from getting a bomb or we have to keep the sanctions in place.

If it’s a good agreement why won’t President Obama bring it to the Senate for a vote? He’s going to veto bipartisan legislation but he’s willing to take it to the U.N.

HPR: Knowing what you know now, even given the repercussions, would you sign it again?

HOEVEN: Look, you keep wanting to go back to the process and the point I am making is that we have to make sure that Iran doesn’t get a bomb. I think the best way to do that is with the bipartisan legislation which I am continuing to work on. But at the same time the letter was an effort to make sure that the president is working with Congress after he issued his veto threat.

HPR: The reason I am getting into this process is because this was a little bit unprecedented ... Some people have called you a traitor for doing this, to have gone that far. But can you imagine democrats doing the same thing to President Bush, signing a letter like this?

HOEVEN: Yes, in fact they did, when Bush was in office the vice president who as you say was critical, Joe Biden, he went to Georgia at a time that the president was negotiating the conflict between Russia and Georgia. Nancy Pelosi, same thing during the Bush Administration, went to Syria when Bush was confronting Syria and Bashar Assad …

The Democratic house sent a letter to Daniel Ortega back when Reagan was negotiating against the Sandinistas and in those instances, they were actually going over in somewhat of a sympathetic way, whereas our letter, it’s a public letter that says very clearly that any deal has to prevent Iran from getting a bomb. It’s actually standing up to Iran in a public way and saying, “Hey, any deal that includes releasing sanctions, which is what is putting the pressure on Iran, has to be verifiable and make sure that you don’t build a bomb and is transparent so that you are not able to cheat on the deal. So there’s clear precedent many times that involved members of the Senate or Congress being involved in foreign affairs and under Article 1 the Senate is required to be involved in any treaty or in any executed congressional agreement.

And the other thing is there is also precedent for what President Obama is doing in terms of trying to negotiate an executive agreement and leaving out Congress, and that is in 1994 when then President Clinton was negotiating with the North Koreans. He negotiated an executive agreement with the North Koreans and it was agreement that they were not supposed to build a bomb and in return the U.S. was to provide food assistance and he refused to bring it to Congress for verification. That was in 1994 and today North Korea has a bomb. So when Clinton did exactly what President Obama is now doing, North Korea ended up with a bomb.

And that’s why we are trying, and in this case remember the sanctions are not sanctions that President Obama put in place. He’s looking at, he’s talking about releasing sanctions Congress put in place on an agreement he refuses to bring to Congress.

And the other thing is the administration and some of the critics have said, well if you don’t have an agreement then the only other option is a military confrontation. That’s wrong. The other option is keeping the sanctions in place. Under Article 1 of the Constitution the Senate has a role to play not only in any agreement like we are talking about, and the Senate has typically been involved. I think in any of the nuclear type agreements that you can think of for treaties, the Senate has been involved, and the Senate also, under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, is involved with putting sanctions in place, which comes under the foreign commerce clause of the constitution.

HPR: There are reports that the U.S. and Iran are getting closer to a deal, and there’s some talk that maybe this letter brought them closer together. What would your response to that be?

HOEVEN: I would argue that the letter actually strengthens Obama’s hand in terms of getting a good deal because it makes it clear that Congress won’t support a deal or release sanctions unless the deal ensures that Iran doesn’t build a bomb. If he were inclined to get a bad deal, a deal that would give Iran a bomb, then no. But that’s not what Americans want. Americans don’t want Iran to have a bomb. They recognize that would create a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Not only then, Iran having a nuclear weapon, but then Saudi Arabia would get one ... Turkey, Egypt. Not only Americans don’t want that, the world doesn’t want that.

HPR: I would agree with you that Americans don’t want them to get a bomb. But the other side of that coin, Senator, is that Americans, in particular North Dakotans are fatigued by war. Americans are tired of fighting these battles in the Middle East that never end and are costly. And say Iran does get a bomb, what are we going to do, start a war with them? Do we really want to get that involved with something like that again?

HOEVEN: The best way to avoid a military confrontation is to either have a deal that prevents them from getting a bomb or keeping the sanctions in place. If they have an agreement that allows them to build a nuclear weapon, that increases the risk of military confrontation because then the only way to take out their nuclear weapon capability would be to actually conduct a military strike. So that’s the whole point. A bad agreement increases the risk of military confrontation.

HPR: If a deal is reached, what do you think the response with Congress would be?

HOEVEN: A lot of this dialogue with you and I think generally in a lot of cases has been an effort to get into the process rather than focus on the merit. The merits are, we either need a good deal, it’s verifiable or we need to keep sanctions in place. Because a bad deal leads to Iran getting a nuclear weapon. That’s the substance. And the best way to work on that is what we’ve been trying to do, and that’s with our bipartisan legislation to require that the president bring a deal to the Congress for a vote and then if he can get the right kind of deal, then Congress would support it and then, yes, you could reduce or release the sanctions ...

One other thing I think I should point out to you ... just so you know the sanctions, since 2012, here’s some numbers from the Treasury Department: oil sanctions have denied Iran access to about $200 billion. Their oil exports are down 60 percent under our sanctions, going from exports from about 2.5 billion barrels a day in 2012 to about 1.1 million barrels per day in 2015. Also under our sanctions regime, which also includes banking sanctions, Iran is unable to access most of its $100 billion in foreign currency reserves.

Now, Iran is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism in the world. So at the point those sanctions are released, look at what that means in terms of them being able to access $100 billion in foreign currency reserves, hundreds of billions in oil revenue over time. So they are pretty anxious to get those sanctions released. So the whole problem is if the president executes an agreement with them and then releases the sanctions, they have access to all that money and they are No. 1 sponsor of terrorism in the whole world. So we better for darn sure make sure that we get an agreement so that they can’t build a nuclear weapon before those sanctions are removed. And that’s what we are trying to accomplish.

HPR: What is your response to people who say that you and the other senators and who signed this are traitors by undermining the administration?

HOEVEN: I think it’s unfortunate that people would use those kind of terms. I’ve gone through many precedents where Congress has been involved in negotiations in many different incidents, and again let’s go back to what’s important and that’s making sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon and that what this is about.