Kerry rebuts Corker criticism on Iran deal

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State John Kerry, responding to Sen. Bob Corker’s criticism of a pending nuclear deal with Iran, said Monday if Congress rejects the pact and Iran pursues a nuclear bomb, there will be pressure for the U.S. to respond with military action.

Kerry is trying to round up enough votes in Congress to approve the international agreement that removes economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iran scaling back its nuclear infrastructure. Part of the argument from the Obama administration is that disapproving the deal would allow Iran to start enriching the material needed for a nuclear weapon, which would immediately alarm U.S. allies in the Middle East.

“As we learn about them enriching or we have indications of what they’re doing, what do you think 16 Republican candidates for president will start saying? What do you think (Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu will start saying? ‘They’re enriching. What are you going to do about it?’ ” Kerry said. “You know there’s going to be a hue and cry.”

Kerry, in a meeting with reporters, was responding directly to Corker’s accusation that it’s a “false choice” to say that rejecting the deal leads to war. Corker is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has grown increasingly critical of the deal, in part because he believes it leaves too much leeway for Iran to develop a nuclear capability.

“I don’t believe that any senator is asking for war,” Kerry said. “I hope they’re not. I certainly don’t assert that people are willfully trying to make that choice. And some people may make a decision, like Sen. Corker has, that it won’t be the choice.”

But Kerry charged that if the deal disintegrates, Iran’s nuclear program would become unfettered and “inevitably pressure will mount for conflict.”

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz argued that without the inspections outlined in the deal, the U.S. would have little time to use military force to stop Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon.

“We’re going to be left at a place where if we want to respond, it’s going to have to be a very quick action taken because you will be depending on our intelligence in a whole bunch of areas without verification measures put in place, so we’re going to be in an awfully tough spot,” Moniz said. “Whether war comes or not I don’t know. It’s going to be a very tough spot.”

Corker, in a national radio address on Saturday, again rejected the deal vs. war argument.

“Throughout the negotiations, the administration routinely asserted that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ and threatened to walk away if necessary,” Corker said. “So clearly there was always another option for the White House — and it wasn’t war.”

Contact Mary Troyan at mtroyan@usatoday.com