Iran International congressional reporter
Republican lawmakers on Tuesday urged a tougher line on Washington's Mideast adversary Tehran and outlined plans for new legislation targeting the Islamic Republic as tensions have soared in recent days.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran would face bombing if it did not agree to a new nuclear deal, prompting a senior advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to moot the pursuit of a bomb in the event of an attack.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) in a press conference advocated a series of new acts it said would increase pressure on Tehran in line with Trump's policy of stepping up sanctions in a bid to force the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table.
It named ten proposed pieces of legislation including the Free Iraq from Iran Act, Stop Corrupt Iranian Oligarchs and Entities Act and the No Sanctions Relief for Terrorists Act.
"This package is the strongest Iran sanctions and security package delivered to date.
The Iranian people are not the target," Congressman August Pfluger of Texas told reporters.
"It's the leadership that wants to gain a nuclear weapon and wants to continue that pariah state of sowing chaos and terrorism throughout the world," he added. "If I were them, I would make the choice of announcing loud and clear that they will not attain a nuclear weapon."
The US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said last week that Washington assessed Iran is not building nuclear weapons but that a taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public was eroding.
The RSC is a conservative caucus for house Republicans founded in 1973.
"Right now, Tehran has a very clear offering, and that's to enter into negotiations in good faith with President Trump, who has laid out not only a roadmap for the Persian Farsi people to be successful, but for Iran to have a future," Representative Zach Nunn of Iowa said.
"It simply means stop funding terrorism, stop avoiding the sanctions regime, come to the table, de-escalate and end a nuclear regime that only ends in death for potentially hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East."
Trump told NBC News on Sunday that if a deal was not reached, "there will be bombing — and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before." Khamenei vowed retaliation to any attack.
An attack, a veteran nuclear negotiator and advisor to the Supreme Leader said on Monday, would push Iran toward acquiring nuclear weapons to ensure its defense,
Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons and Khamenei has issued a religious injunction against them, but the United Nations nuclear watchdog says Iran has enriched more uranium than any state lacking a bomb.
"Not only are they pursuing a nuclear weapon to vaporize Israel and ultimately the United States, they're developing ICBMs, which can only be for one purpose, and that is to deliver a nuclear attack against the American people," Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina said.
"And there must be verification, not the charades we've had with the previous administrations."
Trump withdrew from a 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran in his first term after bashing it as too lenient. Khamenei said talks were pointless if a new deal could easily be broken.
The US military has deployed long range bombers at a strategic Indian Ocean airbase, a spokesperson told Iran International last week, a move which presaged major bombing campaigns against Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
