Marco Rubio
Marco RubioOffice of Senator Marco Rubio

In a scathing two-page letter by 43 Republican senators to US President Barack Obama dated this Wednesdasy, the senators, led by Mark Kirk and Marco Rubio, warned that they were "alarmed" by reported plans to bypass Congress and reach a nuclear deal with Iran.

The senators were alarmed at "reports that your administration plans to circumvent Congress and unilaterally provide significant sanctions relief under a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted Wednesday that the US and Iran would reach a nuclear deal by November 24, indicating the stage may be set for a titanic battle between the Obama Administration and the incoming Republican-majority US Senate on the exact terms of any Obama-Iran nuclear deal.

Most noticeably absent from the signatories to the senators' missive was Senator Rand Paul, who has a history of not signing any pro-Israel letters. By contrast Senator Ted Cruz, Paul’s likely Republican nomination presidential contender, was a signatory to the Rubio-Kirk Letter.

The Senate Republican letter goes on to state, “Reported plans to circumvent Congress suggest that your negotiators may be concluding a weak and dangerous deal which...would ensure the ultimate failure of any agreement, and runs directly counter to Secretary of State John Kerry's April 2014 statement to the Senate that your administration was absolutely obligated by law to come back to Congress in order to lift sanctions as part of the final deal with Iran.”

Arutz Sheva reported in October that Ben Rhodes, a senior White House adviser, had been secretly taped bragging that a nuclear deal with Iran was Obama’s foreign-policy “signature” equivalent of “ObamaCare,” and that they working to structure a deal that would evade any congressional approval or ratification.

The senators point out an even more alarming fact, saying that “the negotiators' objective disregarded clear expressions from the Senate emphasizing the need for a multi-decade agreement requiring Iran to fully suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities, to dismantle its illicit nuclear infrastructure, and completely disclose its past work on nuclear weaponization.”

As Arutz Sheva also reported, Iran has failed to explain to the UN atomic agency its research into “neutron initiators” and “exploding bridge wires” which are the principal parts of the “nuclear military dimension” still outstanding.

And shockingly, in an Iranian letter to the IAEA dated June 4, Iran claimed that since the P5+1-Iran Joint Statement failed to reference the “Possible Military Dimension (PMD)” issue, Iran no longer has to answer any questions regarding any of its military nuclear experiments.

This would indicate Iran believes the Joint Statement trumped and superseded any prior IAEA/UN Security Consul nuclear mandates of Iran. And consistent with Iran’s letter, as late as this week, Director General Yukiya Amano of the IAEA said Iran had failed to answer any remaining questions concerning the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program.

The senators further expressed that “we also remain concerned about the full range of Iran's threatening behavior. As the State Department has reported, Iran remains of the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. Iran's military forces, terrorist proxies, and illicit financial activities are perpetuating slaughter in Syria, and selling extremism and instability throughout the region.”

With the Republicans poised in control of the US Senate for the next two years, the Republican senators threatened that “unless the White House genuinely engages with Congress, we see no way that any agreement consisting of your administration's current proposals to Iran will endure the 114th Congress and after your presidential term ends.”

In light of Obama’s unilateral executive action over immigration and the Iranian nuclear file, there are anticipations for a very tense two month period until the new Congress and Republican Senate majority is sworn in.