Cotton: Israelis want assurance

WASHINGTON -- Israeli officials want Congress to pass legislation demonstrating that the U.S. still has a close relationship with Israel, in the event that the Iran nuclear deal is approved, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton said Tuesday. Cotton made his remarks after a weeklong trip to meet with Israeli government officials.

The Republican from Arkansas said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israelis he spoke with continue to uniformly oppose the nuclear-arms deal with Iran in part because they think the billions of dollars Iran, will get when sanctions are lifted will increase Iranian support for groups such as Hamas that have attacked Israel.

"Israel truly feels like they are in a ring of fire from Iran and the consequences of the Iranian deal," Cotton said. "While the nuclear consequences are grave and make the deal bad enough, the immediate consequences of empowering Iranian aggression and terror is something that the United States and Israel have to work together to check."

Debate on the Iran nuclear deal began Tuesday afternoon in the Senate after Congress returned from its August recess. The House and Senate have until Sept. 17 to vote on a resolution either opposing or supporting the deal that was negotiated between Iran, the United States and other world powers. The agreement would lift crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iran stalling its nuclear-weapons program for 10 years.

Forty-two Democrats in the Senate now say they support the deal. That's enough -- if they stick together -- to keep a resolution opposing the deal from being voted on. Some opponents of the deal have now begun talking about what happens next.

President Barack Obama has promised to veto the resolution if it passes.

Cotton said he expects Democrats who support the deal to uphold the president's veto or to filibuster the resolution so a vote isn't taken on it.

"Many Israelis, once the vote is behind us, once we know the deal is going to move forward, would be interested in a package of measures that would provide greater U.S.-Israeli cooperation and also send the right signal to Iran and its proxies," Cotton said.

Cotton said he would support such a package, but he doesn't expect it to come together until later the fall, after Congress votes. Cotton and the rest of Arkansas' congressional delegation oppose the Iran nuclear deal.

Cotton said he and Netanyahu talked about measures that would likely include public statements from Congress of exactly what actions it would consider violations of the Iranian deal and what consequences would result, and more cooperation between U.S. and Israeli intelligence. It might also mean more foreign military and arms sales to Israel, such as the massive ordnance penetrator or "bunker buster" and bombers to carry them, an idea Cotton has raised before in speeches.

"They didn't make any firm requests," Cotton said.

He said senators have discussed the idea of a support package but are waiting to lay out the details until the Iran deal's fate is determined.

"We just need to focus on the deal right now," Cotton said. "The consequences of this deal can be immediate in some ways, but the greatest consequences won't be immediate. There's time to take stock of Iran's behavior in the immediate aftermath of the deal, which I expect will be as bad as it has been, if not worse."

This was Cotton's second trip to Israel as a member of Congress. In 2013, he and a group of freshman House members traveled to Israel on a trip organized by The American Israel Education Foundation. Several members of Arkansas' delegation have made the trip in recent years. U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., made the trip in mid-August.

Cotton was the only senator on this trip, which was also organized by the foundation, and had a chance to speak with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon one-on-one, rather than in a group.

"It [was] a much more collaborative, productive conversation," he said.

Cotton also ate Shabbat, or Sabbath dinner, with a family that moved to Israel from the United States 15 years ago. And he visited the Golan Heights, a long-disputed mountainous region along the Israel-Syria border. The area was struck by rockets the week before, he said.

Cotton spent last weekend in Jordan, where he did some work in Amman for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and visited the Zaatari refugee camp run by the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees. The U.N. estimates that the camp houses nearly 80,000 Syrians.

Cotton said people there live in small spaces, get about an hour of electricity a day, get $15 to $30 a month in food rations, "and there's a newborn baby in the camp every two to three hours."

"It's just a terrible human tragedy," Cotton said. "It's heartbreaking to see what those refugees from the war endure every day."

International attention has turned to the refugees in recent weeks as hundreds of thousands have fled to Europe, and elsewhere in the Middle East, to avoid fighting.

A Section on 09/09/2015